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I haven't heard about spreading HPV through tissue contact, but I am certainly no expert. I'll have to ask my doctor about that next time I see him.
HPV infects mucous membranes such as the vagina, penis, anus, rectum, scrotum, and mouth/throat. It likes wet, warm, moist locations, so while it can cause cancer in any of them from when I went digging for information on it, the cervix and mouth are the most common locations. Herpes can infect those, along with the eyes, nipples, and lips, being a mucous membrane virus, but HPV transmission is primarily focused on genital and oral sex. It is warned that non-genital skin contact from the surrounding areas, such as thighs or buttocks can transmit the virus, along with the sharing of wet towels or clothing.
It's a benign virus unless it goes tumor on you. The oral cancer versions are apparently much, much, much easier to treat with a higher success and survival rate than non-hpv related cancers. If you visit a dentist's office, there should be dozens of newspaper clippings about it. At least there was the last time I went to the dentist.
HPV seems to basically be a fact of life for sexually active humans. It's completely invisible and has no symptoms in the carrier state, with the ability for your body to fight off active infections, and a vaccine without a 100% success rate (but since even most infected people have no symptoms...) and an unknown duration. Infections can be detected by oral rinse, blood work, and a positive smear - but they can only smear you if you have a lesion forming, and rinses/blood work are unavailable except in clinical trials from what I've gathered.
People believe that "HPV is the cervical cancer virus" but it's far more than that. I also think that if people were told medically, "Since statistics show that 9/10 women are exposed to it in their life, you've got it or are going to get it, and give it to somebody else" people would freak out.
This is just about the 4 'high risk' strains of HPV. There's over two hundred HPV strains, I forget how many of them cause the genital wart infection (can also be oral - sweet.) Gardassil protects against 2 strains of high risk and two strains of genital wart - the four most common versions of the virus that comprise most of the infections of both.
I don't understand *why* Gardassil isn't administered to men as well, considering oral cancer infects both genders and is increasingly common, and since men pass the virus on to women (and women pass it on to men)...
Technically speaking, if you've practiced anal sex, you should have an annual colonoscopy to check for lesions forming as well. It's good practice to do this later in life to check for general colorectal cancer.
