What You Need to Know When Dating Someone With HPV
Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs)HPV

Dating Someone With HPV? Here’s What You Need to Know

Dating Someone With HPV? Here’s What You Need to Know
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Updated on December 8, 2025
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Human papillomavirus (HPV) is the most common sexually transmitted infection (STI) in the United States, affecting roughly 14 million people each year.

While there are over 100 strains of HPV, more than 40 of them can affect the genitals specifically.

People who aren’t vaccinated against the virus are likely to contract an HPV infection at some point in their lifetime, and often without symptoms, which can make it challenging to prevent transmitting the infection to sexual partners.

How to Know Whether You or Your Partner Has HPV

A few strains of HPV cause genital warts in men and women, but if you or your partner has one of the many other strains of HPV, it’s likely symptoms won’t be present, says Natasha Bhuyan, MD, a One Medical physician in Phoenix.

 This lack of symptoms makes it particularly tricky to know who has HPV, whether you and your partner are at risk of transmitting the virus to one another, and, if you are both diagnosed with HPV, who had the infection first.
If your partner is male, it’s almost impossible to know for sure whether he has HPV, says Dr. Bhuyan. “We can test for HPV in women, but there isn’t a good test for men,” she says. Physicians usually check for HPV in women by taking a sample of cervical cells, often during a Pap smear.

“There are blood tests for HPV, but nobody recommends using them because they’re not useful,” says Bhuyan. “All they show is if you have immunity. That indicates you had HPV at one point, but it doesn’t tell you if you have an active infection.”

So, if you or your partner is female, a Pap smear can diagnose HPV regardless of noticeable symptoms. However, if you or your partner is male, diagnosing HPV is difficult without the presentation of symptoms like genital warts.

How to Protect Yourself and Your Partner From HPV

While there are treatments available to address the symptoms of HPV, they don’t rid the body of infection. Most healthy people with lower-risk cases of HPV clear the infection within 12 to 24 months.

If you’re female and have been diagnosed with HPV and don’t know whether your partner also has HPV, it’s recommended that you stop having sex while you have visible symptoms like genital warts and use protection whenever you’re intimate once visible symptoms are no longer there.

Certain strains of HPV are linked to cancer, most notably cervical cancer, so it’s essential to follow safer sex practices when you have HPV.

 In addition to oral, anal, and vaginal sex, HPV can also be transmitted via skin-to-skin contact.

 Consider asking your partner to get the HPV vaccine as well to help protect them from the cancer-causing strains of the virus.

Similarly, if your partner confirms they have HPV, follow the same safer sex guidelines to protect yourself from contracting the virus. And if you haven’t received HPV vaccination, consult your physician to learn whether you’re eligible to further protect yourself.

Repeat HPV Infections: Are They Possible?

While you can contract different strains of HPV over your lifetime, you’re unlikely to experience multiple infections from the same strain. This means you and your partner cannot pass the same infection back and forth repeatedly.

“Once you get HPV, your body builds antibodies to that strain,” says Bhuyan. “So when you give HPV to your partner, they generally don’t pass it back to you because you’re already immune to that one strain.”

“However, because there are so many strains of HPV, people can end up getting different strains, especially if you’re not in a monogamous partnership,” she adds.

If you or your partner is also intimate with other people and you have HPV, Bhuyan recommends being extra mindful of using protection to protect not only other partners from HPV infection but also yourself from other potential HPV strains and STIs these partners may have.

The Takeaway

  • It can be difficult to diagnose and control the spread of HPV, the most common STI, due to the number of strains that occur without symptoms and the lack of testing options for men.
  • Most healthy individuals clear an HPV infection within 12 to 24 months, but it’s recommended that you avoid sex when you have visible symptoms like genital warts, practice safer sex even when no visible symptoms are present, and consider the HPV vaccine to prevent transmission and protect against cancer-linked strains.
  • While your body builds immunity to a specific strain of HPV, preventing you and your partner from repeatedly passing the same infection back and forth, it’s possible to contract different strains of the virus over your lifetime.

Resources We Trust

EDITORIAL SOURCES
Everyday Health follows strict sourcing guidelines to ensure the accuracy of its content, outlined in our editorial policy. We use only trustworthy sources, including peer-reviewed studies, board-certified medical experts, patients with lived experience, and information from top institutions.
Resources
  1. HPV (Human Papillomavirus). Cleveland Clinic. October 21, 2024.
  2. Basic Information about HPV and Cancer. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. September 17, 2024.
  3. Genital Warts. Mayo Clinic. December 19, 2023.
  4. HPV Test. Mayo Clinic. July 13, 2024.
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Kara Smythe, MD

Medical Reviewer

Kara Smythe, MD, has been working in sexual and reproductive health for over 10 years. Dr. Smythe is a board-certified fellow of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and her interests include improving maternal health, ensuring access to contraception, and promoting sexual health.

She graduated magna cum laude from Florida International University with a bachelor's degree in biology and earned her medical degree from St. George’s University in Grenada. She completed her residency in obstetrics and gynecology at the SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York. She worked in Maine for six years, where she had the privilege of caring for an underserved population.

Smythe is also passionate about the ways that public health policies shape individual health outcomes. She has a master’s degree in population health from University College London and recently completed a social science research methods master's degree at Cardiff University. She is currently working on her PhD in medical sociology. Her research examines people's experiences of accessing, using, and discontinuing long-acting reversible contraception.

When she’s not working, Smythe enjoys dancing, photography, and spending time with her family and her cat, Finnegan.

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