Surprise, Surprise: HPV Vaccine Does Not Cause Sluttiness

Preliminary data from a nationally representative survey of young women cast further doubt on the dubious assertion that vaccinating girls against HPV will spur them to become sexually active at a younger age, or have more sexual partners: A survey has found that girls ages 15 to 19 who are vaccinated against human papillomavirus, or HPV, are no more likely to be sexually active or to have more partners than unvaccinated girls.

The report, published in the January issue of The American Journal of Preventive Medicine, also found that among sexually active girls, those who were vaccinated were more likely to consistently use a condom than those who had not had the shot. ​“This is all preliminary data, but it shows no association between HPV vaccination and sexual risk,” said the lead author, Nicole C. Liddon, of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. ​“So it should to some degree assuage any concerns that HPV vaccination would lead to increased sexual activity.” [NYT]

It was always far-fetched to think that a shot against one STI would prompt girls to have sex they wouldn’t otherwise have had. Keep in mind that the HPV virus is usually asymptomatic in the short-term but increases cervical cancer risk later in life. It’s not the kind of calculus you’d expect to make a huge difference to impulsive teenagers living in the moment. Besides, if STI risk was the only thing holding them back, there’s no shortage of other infections they could still get. If subsequent studies confirm these preliminary results, will conservatives give up this canard? Probably not. The specter of unbridled female sexuality was never an empirical prediction about girls’ behavior, it is a value judgement about what ought to happen to girls who have sex outside of marriage. Social conservatives oppose HPV vaccination because they think that a cancer-causing virus is a just punishment for unauthorized sex.