HPV Positive: Why You Should Tell Sex Partners If You’re Diagnosed With the Virus

The sexually transmitted infection human papillomavirus (HPV) is really, really, ridiculously common. Roughly 13 million people get it each year, according to CDC data, and it’s safe to assume that if you’re sexually active, you will likely have it at some point in your life—giving it the dubious honor of being the most common STI. There are many strains of the virus, most of which aren’t dangerous and have no symptoms, so you can get it and get over it (your body fights and clears it on its own) without ever knowing. It also means you can unknowingly give it to someone else—which is a big part of the reason it’s seemingly everywhere.

Indeed, it might seem like since HPV is all around us, there’s no real need to inform your sexual partners if you have it. They either have it, too, or are bound to at some point, right? So why make it awkward? “It’s a bit of a quandary—there are so many different strains of HPV that most people have had at least one,” Idries Abdur-Rahman, MD, a board-certified ob-gyn, tells SELF. Plus, you can only get tested for the virus if you have a vagina, so depending on who you’re telling, they may not even be able to find out whether they have it, too, Dr. Abdur-Rahman explains (more on that later). Those factors combined with the fact that HPV is often harmless means it’s natural to wonder if speaking up is worth it, he says.

But the truth is that, although HPV is common, certain strains of the virus can be dangerous. And as with any STI, there’s a certain amount of honesty you owe to a partner if you know that you may pass something along to them—even if it seems like it’s probably NBD. Here’s what you need to know before you give yourself permission to keep mum.

While some types of HPV are totally harmless, others can cause warts or cancer.

Many of the 200-plus viruses that fall under the HPV umbrella won’t harm you at all, and you’ll never know you had one because they often clear from your system all on their own, Antonio Pizarro, MD, an ob-gyn, urogynecologist, and female pelvic medicine expert in Shreveport, LA, tells SELF. But there are several strains—usually types 6 and 11—that cause genital warts, or little clusters of flat or raised bumps you can pass to a partner. Wart-causing strains are considered “low-risk,” because they rarely cause cancer but in some cases, they might.

And there are 12 “high-risk” types of HPV that can cause cancer of the vagina, vulva, penis, anus, head, and neck. Of those, types 16 and 18 are to blame for most HPV-related cases of cancer, including cervical cancer. If you know that you are HPV positive, chances are it’s one of these higher-risk strains: HPV tests don’t screen for every 200-plus virus; they only look for a dozen or so strains that are more likely to cause cancer.