To anyone born too early to get the vaccine in the past, talk to your doctor! I was diagnosed with cervical cancer last year, and my doctor says the cutoffs have changed, so even with my diagnosis, it's still worth getting.
this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2026
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I was part of the first cohort in 2008. There were a number of girls at my school whose parents didn't give permission, calling it the "slut jab". I remember boys in our year going round deliberately punching our arms on jab days and calling us slags. At least it was worth it in the end.
Teenaged boys are idiots, but parents really should know better. Or the permission slip should be better at explaining what's happening.
They knew. They knew that it prevented something that a woman could get during sex. So obviously getting it would just encourage girls to have sex, because they knew they were safe!
If only they had known that it is also something that men can get from sex.
That’s the part that I think perhaps wasn’t communicated well enough. So much focus is put on the women getting it that their little pea brains decided that women were the only ones affected.
…Or maybe not. They disapprove of sex outside of marriage for men too… officially.
In reality they have a much more complicated relationship with it; a man who doesn’t sleep around isn’t virile enough, but in their eyes marriage is sacred, so boys are told ‘don’t have sex before marriage’, with a pretty hefty nudge-nudge-wink-wink and boys-will-be-boys attached.
But if they get sick for it, oh well, they were warned!
I think there are recommendations for the HPV vaccine being extended to men in certain groups now as well. Seems like a highly successful prevention
Great!