[Question #6087] Hpv massage

18 months ago

I had a lapse of judgement in a massage parlor , she sat on my exposed penis with her exposed vagina while she massaged me . Worried about hpv, also I gave her cunnilingus for about a minute , worried about hpv

18 months ago

Also if you had hpv orally in the past , do you have immunity in the genital area from the same strain

H. Hunter Handsfield, MD

18 months ago

Welcome back, but sorry to see you're still apparently obsessed with HPV!.

In theory, HPV might be transmitted by genital apposition without penetration, but it's rare. And you can assume you have had genital HPV before (almost everybody gets it, often several times). As discussed in your previous threads, it's normal and mostly harmless. This particular event does not significantly raise your risk either for HPV infection or any health problems from it (e.g. genital warts). And oral HPV is very uncommon after any particular oral sex exposure. These events aren't worth a moment of worry.

And yes, your oral HPV infection makes you highly resistant to new infection (anywhere on the body) with whichever HPV type caused that problem. However, you're still susceptible to other HPV types with which you haven't been infected.

I hope this information is helpful. Let me know if anything isn't clear.

HHH, MD

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18 months ago

Thank you , just want to make sure we are on same page

1 in theory means could happen but prob not , have you ever seen it happen ?

2 I definitely had the wart causing hpv orally , how protected am I from getting it again orally or genitally ?

3 am I safe to have all kinds of sex with my wife

H. Hunter Handsfield, MD

18 months ago

1) I'm not aware I've ever seen a patient with genital warts who had not had intercourse. Probably not.

2) See above: it depends on what specific HPV type caused the oral wart, but that probably isn't known; and even if it is, that's only one type out of about 120. You certainly are susceptible to most of them.

3) Yes. There never has been any reason not to continue sex with your wife, even when your oral wart was active. And there certainly is no reason not to do so now. That includes any and all sex practices that give you mutual pleasure, including oral sex.

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18 months ago

My last question . I have been doing research and hpv has to be rubbed in ? It’s not like poison ivy where if it touches you can be infected ?

H. Hunter Handsfield, MD

18 months ago

It is generally believed that the STIs transmitted skin-to-skin need to be massaged into the exposed tissues. There has been little research on this except for herpes: it is difficult to infect experimental animals with HSV without microabrasion (e.g. sandpaper) at the site of inoculation. For all three, initial symptoms -- warts, syphilitic chancre, first herpes outbreak -- occur primarily at sites of maximum friction during sex (penis in men, vaginal opening and labia minor in women, etc). That's not to say simple superficial contact is entirely risk free, especially on moist surfaces (e.g. labia but not penis) but it's clearly minimal risk.

That completes the two follow-up comments and replies included with each question and so ends this thread. Since repeated anxiety driven questions are discouraged, I hope this will be your last one about HPV -- which after all is a pretty trivial health problem in almost all cases. Thanks for your understanding. I hope the discussion has been helpful.

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H. Hunter Handsfield, MD

18 months ago

I corrected a typo in my initial reply: "common" was an error, revised to read "...oral HPV is very uncommon after any particular oral sex exposure." Sorry for any misunderstanding. I am re-opening this thread in case this change needs clarification or raises an additional question (on oral HPV only). The thread will be re-closed if no further comment in the next day or so.---