The Gender Politics of HPV

It's almost common knowledge by now that an HPV vaccination for women has developed that is readily being administered to young girls. As HPV is an STI that disproportionately affects women, this is, indeed, a huge step forward for the medical field in gender justice. At the same time, it's that same old sorry song and dance: women, even in a progressive discourse on sex, are the ones regulated, the ones obligated to take preventative measures. Women are the ones on birth control; women are the ones asked to resist and tame man's animalistic sexual urges; women are the ones called to civilize young men; naturally, women are the ones called to take preventative measures in the transmission of STIs. While HPV may occur moreso in women than men, men are nonetheless transmitters of the infection and possible sufferers of its symptoms; shouldn't the burden of prevention lie just as much on men as it does on women? The expectation that women should be the bodies we "use" to regulate public health is a small part of a series of sexist institutions that we like to pretend no longer exist.

What's worse is that the approach is not only sexist but HETEROsexist; the theory that the regulation of women will put an end to HPV is only effective if all sexual exchanges are between men and women. Those of us not living under an Adam & Eve rock are aware that this is not the case. Men, and particularly men who have sex with men, are more susceptible to oral, throat, and anal cancer as well as genital warts as they contract HPV. The vaccination of exclusively women not only unfairly forces women to regulate sexual health but it ineffectively does so, concentrating the disease largely to men (who have sex with men).

So what can we do as men and women? Insist that men be given an HPV vaccination that is effective and fair. We can't expect to live in a world of gender equality if we discriminate in sexual health; we can't expect to live in a world that recognizes the human beauty of all people if we blanketly ignore homosexuals in medical discourse. Let's not make HPV another artifact our culture assigns as a "girl thing."

UPDATE:
As of 10/23, the CDC has announced that the HPV vaccination will be made available to men. While women are still to the ones most encouraged to get vaccinated, men will be informed about the possibility and benefits of an HPV vaccination (like an avoidance of genital warts, a smaller chance of anal/oral cancer, and an 89 percent chance that men won't be carriers to their partners). Obviously, my blog was convincing:). Now, of course, the vaccination DOES cost $130, making it feasible only to to those middle class and above and potentially reducing HPV to a lower class disease. But this is a fight for a different day.
-Adam