A few years ago, all girls were urged to get HPV vaccinations, as an HPV infection, which can lead to cervical cancer, is known to be a health threat to women. There was no call to have boys vaccinated, presumably because cervical cancer doesn’t affect males. However, even at the the time, doctors knew that HPV can cause more than just cervical cancers, and is responsible for the majority of anal cancers, many penile cancers and a majority of certain types of oral and throat cancers. Additionally, boys with HPV can infect girls with HPV, so it’s curious that only one part of the population was urged to get a vaccination.
Until recently, the issue has been largely ignored and downplayed, as male health threats often are, even as anything that might have even the remotest negative effect on female health, such as spray tanning and “feelings” about appearance, is endlessly discussed. Yes, in our contemporary culture, how women feel about images of other women in magazines is treated as a more urgent health issue than the effects of a widespread, carcinogenic infectious disease on men. It turns out that HPV causes two thirds as many cancers in men as women (and this may be an underestimate), yet the vaccination rate for boys is a measly 1.4%, as compared to roughly 50% in girls.
Fortunately, Michael Douglas opened up about his own brush with oral cancer, which, according to doctors treating him, developed after he contracted an HPV infection. Douglas attributed it to oral sex, but this need not be the case. HPV can be contracted merely from kissing someone who also has an oral infection (or, for that matter, from receiving oral sex). His openness about the cause of his cancer has brought some much-needed attention to the fact that the virus can harm men as well as women.
However, there was an immediate reaction against Douglas, who was subsequently forced to issue a statement exonerating male on female oral sex, presumably because it implicates something feminists frequently promote.
Can anyone imagine a woman who said she’d contracted oral cancer from giving head having to downplay the risk due to male objection? Of course not; that would be unthinkable! Women’s health takes priority over men’s pleasure in our culture every single time. Perhaps that’s the way it should be, but why not men’s health, too?
In this case, the double standard is not only blatant, but stupid as well, because men with HPV can infect women. It’s another case of feminism, by separating what’s good for women from what’s good for men, coming not only at the expense of men, but society as a whole. If, from the berginning, we’d treated HPV infection as a problem affecting all of society rather than just women, perhaps many more infections among men and women could have been averted, but the pathetically low male vaccination rate proves that, until now, few considered this common-sense idea.
Once again, Michael Douglas has taken a stand against radical feminism. First, he took on false accusation and sexual bullying in the office with Disclosure, and now he’s letting us know that men can not only be victimized by women in a professional setting, but can suffer from the same diseases as well. And, despite standing up for men and earning the wrath of feminist critics like Roger Ebert, he married the objectively beautiful Catherine Zeta-Jones. It’s great to hear that Michael Douglas’s cancer is in remission and he is healthy. Hopefully, his candid remarks about HPV and oral cancer will lead more parents to take preventative measures for their sons; clearly we can’t rely on the establishment to handle the problem.
