But having one of these types doesn’t automatically mean you’ll develop any health issues. In fact, chances are, you’ll still clear the infection and be HPV-free with no lingering effects. “Unless it causes untreated cancer, HPV is not lethal, and it’s very likely to simply go away on its own,” Dr. Pizarro reiterates. However, “even if a person—male or female—who’s been exposed doesn’t develop cancer, HPV can be passed on to subsequent partners and lead to cancer for them. This needs to be disclosed the way any other STD needs to be disclosed,” Dr. Pizarro says.
HPV testing is only available for people with vaginas, but anyone can get warts and cancer from it—and pass it to others.
An HPV test is done as part of routine cervical cancer screening…which means you have to have a cervix to ever learn if you do, in fact, have HPV. For the test, your ob-gyn will swab the inside of your vagina and way up into the cervix, collecting a sample of secretions, and sending it to a lab. A Pap smear, which is done the same way, tests for changes in cervical cells and not the HPV virus specifically—but typically, an abnormal result is highly suggestive of HPV. The recommendations for when to get which test are a little confusing, but the most likely guideline your ob-gyn will follow is that of the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), which advises anyone with a cervix aged 21 to 29 is screened with a Pap every three years, and then from age 30 to 65, with an HPV test every five years. Alternative options include getting a Pap every three years or getting a combined HPV/Pap (called a co-test) every five years.
But there’s no commercially available HPV or HPV-adjacent test for people with penises, Dr. Lew notes. “They have done studies on HPV in [cis] men, so a test must exist, but it’s not a test you could go into a doctor’s office and ask for,” Dr. Lew says. Since HPV is asymptomatic until it progresses to the point of causing cancer—unlike other STIs that might cause pain during urination or discharge, prompting someone to seek medical care—if you aren’t subject to cervical cancer screening, you’ll likely go your entire life never knowing you have or had it.
The exception: “If you have genital warts, then you can assume you have some version of HPV,” says Dr. Lew. The wart-causing strains of the virus are not usually the same ones that cause abnormal Pap smears and cancer, but it’s still good to know and important to disclose to your partner that you have a form of HPV that causes genital warts. (Because reminder: In some situations, these strains can turn into cancer, which is why they are called low-risk and not no-risk.)
Although people with penises are often none the wiser if a partner gives them HPV, they can also still end up getting cancer: About 40% of HPV-related cancers happen in cis men. If you have one of the higher-risk strains, it could put your partner at risk for several types of cancer, and telling them gives them the chance to talk to their doctor and keep a closer eye on their health. It also lets them know that they might be at risk of passing that scarier strain on to future partners.
Safe sex isn’t enough to ensure that you don’t pass HPV to your partner.
To be honest, safe sex isn’t guaranteed to fully prevent you getting any STIs (though it’s certainly better than doing nothing). But since HPV is transmitted through skin-to-skin contact, barriers like dental dams and condoms don’t protect you from getting it during sex as much as they do against STIs passed via mucous membranes and bodily fluids, like syphilis and gonorrhea.
