B. - "I have to wait for my computer to scan for viruses."
C. - "That is smart. Humans should have virus scanners on them too."


The more I read on the discussion boards, the more I realize how important it is to not overreact to HPV. I see people who have become obsessed with the virus, who let it consume their lives until it becomes their biggest interest and blocks out everything else. There are people who are focused on cancer, and live in fear that their HPV will spread to other areas of their body. There are people who examine themselves with mirrors daily. And there are people who consider it a sin to ever, ever have sex with anyone who does not have the virus. There are even people who vow to never have sex again.

Do not let HPV control your life. True, you have a virus that is sexually transmitted. True, dating will become somewhat harder after your diagnosis. But this is not the end of the world! An increasing number of studies show that HPV is only temporarily contagious - indeed, the virus may not even stay in the body for life and may become dormant within a few short years. This is not forever! Even when the virus is active, it is mostly harmless. True, some people get cervical cancer. But the vast majority of HPV clears up. The power HPV has over you lies not in its physical manifestation, but in the emotional response it invokes from you. HPV is an emotional virus.

The hardest part of life is living. It's relatively easy to shut yourself away from the rest of the world, and retreat into a safe place where you know no one will reject you. Picking yourself up and opening yourself up again is what takes real strength. But even though it requires will power, it's also the most relieving thing you could ever do for yourself. You do not need to stay at home, cowering in fear that people will see a scarlet "HPV" on your back when you walk outside. You do not need to break off contact after a first date because you think the person will run away if you tell them you have HPV. You do not need to sabotage yourself, simply because you fear that people will not accept you for who you are. And most of all, you do not need to cry hysterically for hours on end because you are causing your own loneliness by shutting yourself out from everyone.

Note: the following contains my own personal beliefs about HPV and sexuality in general. You don't have to agree, but I simply could not make this site and counsel people without saying what I believe. I wouldn't feel honest unless I did.

There is, however, another side to this argument, which is that you will no longer be able to lead quite the same life as before you were diagnosed. Someone once said, “think of HPV as an advanced relationship filter.” It will immediately eliminate from your prospects anyone who simply wants you for sex, because having sex with you would prevent them from ever having casual sex again with a clear conscience. Painful, but effective. Of course, you may find yourself very upset at this possibility. If so, I would like to ask you: do you think sex should be that important to you – so important that you would put the gratification of your desires before everything else, including your health and the health of your partners? If this is the case, then HPV isn’t causing the problem here. The HPV only brought it out, and it’s a problem that’s in many of us, an addiction that we don’t even think about until something prevents us from satisfying it: the addiction to sex.

We live in a world where sex matters more than anything. Our society is geared towards sex: it surrounds us everywhere we go – it’s in our clothing, in our media, in our manners of speech, and consequently in our ways of thinking. So naturally, given the atmosphere and if there’s nothing else to stop us, we’re going to go out and have sex. Because in this world, sex isn’t valuable. It’s simply a thing people do for pure amusement.

But because this is reality, the consequences hit us. We may have figured out how to cure Syphilis or Gonorrhea, and we may have figured out how to stop pregnancy, but there’s still no way to avoid becoming infected with HPV. And that isn’t even mentioning the emotional scarring resulting from all the broken relationships we get ourselves into – which, to me, is the most important part. So we go out, and get ourselves thoroughly hurt, and then we become these horribly jaded human beings that see ourselves as used goods. We have an STD, and having an STD means we are no longer able to have sex as we please. And since sex is so very important in this “modernized” world, we have just lost our entire functionality. Therefore, we also lose our sense of self-worth. “What good am I,” you may ask yourself, “if I cannot be ‘normal’, if I cannot function as every other human being does?”

When you find yourself feeling this way, stop and think for a moment. Look at those other human beings around you – you know, the ones you are so jealous of – look at them for one second and decide whether they are actually “normal,” or whether they are simply giving themselves up to fulfilling their addictions. Do you think they are happy? Or perhaps, and more likely, are they propelled by the influence of the world around them to party, mindlessly following their whims, and just drain their life away for sex? Is this truly how you want to be?

I am by no means saying here that partying and having sex isn’t fun – undeniably, it is, though in an incredibly destructive way. What I am saying is that once you quit taking the world at face value and start to observe what lies beneath the grasping need to do these things, you will find yourself a lot less inclined to want them, and you will be able to deal with not having them in your life much easier than if you simply go “cold turkey” because you have HPV. And that’s what this is about, anyway – getting you to the point where you do not go into extremes of depression because as far as you can see, you’ll be missing out on something good that everyone else has for the rest of your life, and all because of a stupid virus. Certainly, HPV isn’t something you’d planned on or wanted, and you most definitely aren’t feeling happy about having it right now. But look at it this way: you’ve already got it, and there’s nothing you can do about that at this point. You might as well take what good you can from the experience, instead of freaking out about it and falling into a big black hole labeled “I can never live life again.”

So take the lesson that HPV wants you to learn. Slow down. Think twice before you have sex. And make sex a part of life, not the other way around. Learn to live. Contrary to what society might be teaching you, sex is an extremely valuable thing - in fact, it's so precious that it's worth the diamond on your finger. And most importantly, relax! The hardest part of life may be living - but it is also the most rewarding.