'Oral sex gave me cancer but I think I was lucky and now I’m thankful'

Oral sex gave me cancer.  

I’ve worked as a journalist across four different decades. Over those years, I’ve written millions of words - but those five words are the hardest I’ve ever felt compelled to type.

I’m a private person and I very much prefer telling other people’s stories to my own. Just the thought of going public with such squirm-inducingly intimate details about my life makes my skin crawl.

But if I won’t say it, who will? Hollywood legend Michael Douglas is one of the very few who’s been willing to discuss his own experience of this delicate matter - and he was greeted with widespread disbelief and ridicule.

The silver-screen scion spoke up back in 2013, three years after his diagnosis and while he was still working towards a full recovery. He said: "Without wanting to get too specific, this particular cancer is caused by HPV (human papillomavirus), which actually comes about from cunnilingus.”

Since then, there has been a continued rapid increase in throat and mouth cancers - and HPV, contracted via oral sex, is now widely recognised as being the leading risk factor. It’s also one of the biggest causes of cancers of the vagina and the anus.

The fact HPV causes nearly all cases of cervical cancer is widely known - and it’s largely why the NHS now has an HPV vaccination programme, recommended for children aged 12 to 13 years old and people at higher risk from HPV.

Yet nobody seems to talk about its causal link to throat and mouth cancers - with around 8,600 new cases in men, and 3,900 in women, diagnosed every year.

So I’ll say it again - cunnilingus gave me cancer. An HPV16-positive oral squamous cell carcinoma of the tonsil, to be precise.

For most people, HPV requires no RSVP. The rate of infection varies by gender and age - but it’s estimated to be as high as 90% for sexually active men and 80% for sexually active women.

Nearly all of us will encounter this microbe within months of becoming sexually active — and we won’t even know about it. It’s usually a harmless, symptomless infection that our immune systems kick into touch, after a year or two.

For reasons that are still unclear to modern science, HPV decided not to go AWOL when it passed my lips. Instead, it took up permanent residence, in my left tonsil.

And, not content with claiming squatter’s rights in my throat for decades, my secret lodger then set about doing some cellular re-modelling. I’m sure being a smoker for 30 years, enjoying the occasional party and a glass (or three) of whisky now and then didn’t help matters.

However, if the science says it was giving head rather than hedonism that gave me cancer, who am I to argue? To be honest, I’m not sure it even matters.

Given my time again, I probably wouldn’t change a thing. I’ve had too much fun to have too many regrets.

It would seem that the only truly safe sex is no sex - and even so-called 'safer sex' is really about how much risk you’re comfortable taking.

All that said, I do think it’s important that more people know that oral sex can give you cancer - even it just helps to de-stigmatise the issue. Hopefully, it will also encourage men - who might think they’re at very low risk of developing throat or mouth cancers - to get any symptoms checked out, sharpish.

Fortunately, HPV-related mouth and throat cancers respond very well to treatment, if caught early enough. Less than a year on from my diagnosis, shortly before I turned 50, I’m now cancer-free.

Chronic fatigue aside, I'm recovering well from radiochemotherapy and its awful side effects. And, even though cunnilingus gave me cancer - and the brutal treatment that cured me very nearly broke me - I feel very lucky.

For many people, battling cancer takes years. Having lost my mum to bladder cancer more than a decade ago, I know all too well that an outcome as positive as mine is far from guaranteed.

I’m deeply thankful for the care I received from the NHS. Especially given radiotherapy cancer care has been at breaking point due to a lack of investment

Last year The Daily Express launched a crusade to get a commitment from the government to ramp up investment in radiotherapy. The Government may now have changed, but the need for greater investment in this lifesaving medicine has not.