On the road, answering anonymous questions during my Ask The Girlfriend Gyno chats on my book tour for What’s Up Down There?, questions about HPV -- human papillomavirus -- keep arising. With up to 80% of women destined to contract HPV at some point in their lives (if they haven’t been vaccinated), it’s no wonder this is such a big issue.

Many of the questions about HPV revolve around HPV diagnosed only on a Pap smear, without any symptoms, warts, precancerous changes of the Pap smear, or cervical cancer.

Because the HPV test is relatively new, these issues are too. For many years, we didn’t have an easy way to screen for HPV. And even when we did, it was often only used for women who had atypical squamous cells (ASCUS) on a Pap smear. But now, more and more docs are testing routinely for HPV, leading to a whole lot of confusion, panic, and issues of negative self image. So it’s no wonder these questions keep coming up.