Scarleteen

Hello!

My long-distance partner is going to be visiting very soon and we are almost definitely going to have sex during their stay. I imagine the risk of STDs would be quite limited given our situation, but I would like to make absolutely certain that I am understanding the risks properly. I am particularly concerned about HPV risk, but of course I'd like to hear about anything else I might be missing.

Here's our situation:

- We both have vulvas, so pregnancy is not a concern.
- The both of us have never had any sort of sexual encounter with anyone before.
- I have not received the HPV vaccine, but I believe my partner has (they don't remember for certain).
- I have never had a pap smear to check for HPV. (I know I need to get it done...)
- My mother had cervical cancer a few years before I was born and made a full recovery. (Could she have given me HPV when I was born?)
- My older sister has HPV and needs to get checked once a year to ensure it doesn't develop into cancer.
- My partner and I don't have any sexual health issue as far as we know.

Given all of this, what kind of issues could we encounter? How likely am I to have HPV, realistically? If I do have it, how likely is my partner to catch it from me, and from what sex acts? What methods could keep it from happening? And lastly, is there anything else we should be cautious about?

Thank you very much for your time!

Hi there, Lande.

If you have never been sexual with someone else, your risk of genital HPV is zero. It's not something that can be transmitted during childbirth.

Really, given both the kind of bodies you two have and the fact that you haven't had any kind of intimate physical activity with anyone before, STIs aren't something you two would need to worry about just yet. Once and if you start being sexual together, then it would be wise to start yearly testing and sexual health exams, including pap smears (especially given your family history), as would be the case for anyone.

If you want to use barriers to protect yourselves at any point, here's where you will find directions for doing that with a number of genital sexual activities: https://www.scarleteen.com/read/sexual- ... s-all-time

Knowledge about HPV becomes essential because both partners are virgin and concerned about its transmission. HPV is prevalent between the population while transmission takes place when people connect skin to skin during intimate sexual activities. HPV infection can occur between the two of you even if you have no other sexual partners because neither of you has received a pap smear test yet.

Hey, Lydia, you've posted some inaccurate information here.

A pap smear isn't even a test for HPV, instead it's a test that looks for changes in cervical cells that are most opften caused by HPV. And not having had a pap smear doesn't mean HPV can occur: having them doesn't and can't prevent HPV, again, they are to look for cervical cell changes.

As Lande noted, neither she nor her partner have had the kinds of contact someone needs to to contract genital HPV.