rebecca LANDO

Maybe I got it from someone I loved and had a long relationship with, and maybe I got it from being a big old bed-hopping tramp. I’m not going to say, because it doesn’t matter. It certainly didn’t matter to the cells in my cervix. I’m not ashamed to be in the same company as 80 percent of the population, just as I wasn’t ashamed to tell my daughter that I’d had the virus, and that is why I believe in the vaccine. (The fact that I’ve given birth to her was her first tip-off that Mom’s not a virgin.)

Be ashamed of ignorance. Be ashamed of stigmatizing people for going about the normal business of leading sexual lives. Be ashamed of a culture that’s obsessed with sex but squeamish about the human body. Be ashamed of assuming that giving girls options regarding their future health is somehow a dangerous idea. Be utterly mortified if you’ve ever allowed Michele Bachmann a moment of credibility. But if you’re one of the millions of people like me, who’ve lived and loved and consequently picked up a virus along the way, believe me, a little HPV is the last thing on earth you have to be embarrassed about.