Does the vaccine guarantee immunity, by contrast?

Parent is overstating the case. Neither infection nor vaccination provides sterilizing immunity [1], but the general reasons to prefer vaccination are (in order of descending quality of evidence & reasoning):

1) you probably haven't had all N strains yet.

2a) you likely haven't been infected with the ones that cause cancer, because they're relatively rare.

2b) ...that is especially true if you're young and not sexually active.

2) being infected with one strain does not provide sterilizing cross-immunity against the other strains.

3) even if you've been infected with a strain, some of the vaccines have been shown to prevent reinfection and reactivation better than natural infection alone.

4) in general, the vaccination-mediated immunity might last longer or be "stronger" than the natural version, since the vaccines are pretty immunogenic, and the viruses are not.

But for point 4, it's well-known that vaccine efficacy is lower for people who have already seroconverted (cf [1]), so there's clearly some amount of practical immunity provided by infection.

[1] The vaccines are roughly 90% effective for the major cancer-causing strains, but it's not a simple answer, and varies a lot by how you frame the question. See table 2 here: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8706722/

Also be sure to see table 4 if you're a man. The data for biological men and women are surprisingly different!

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peab 7 hours ago | parent [-]

What if you're married? Does it still make sense, if you know you won't ever be sleeping with a new partner?

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timr 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

A question for your doctor and your partner (and of course, you can read the data in the link I posted above and use that to influence your conversation and decision!)

I'm not being avoidant here -- medical decisions are always subjective and multi-factor, and I can't begin to tell you what you should do. (But I also sincerely believe that propagandists try to reduce nuanced data to talking points, which is equally wrong.)

Please note the caveat about gender that I just added. The data for biological men and women are very different. Also, I haven't discussed risks at all, which is the other side of the ledger -- these vaccines are pretty darned safe, but everything comes with risk, and only you can decide what level of risk is appropriate for your life.

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rawgabbit 6 hours ago | parent [-]

I usually am pro vaccine. But the HPV vaccine discussion seems politicized to me. As someone who is monogamous and over fifty, I had trouble following the risk vs reward discussion. The CDC says it is only recommended for young adults so I interpret that for my case the answer is negative.

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tialaramex 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

All vaccination is now heavily politicized in the US. HPV vaccination was an obvious focal point initially because of why we'd do it when we do.

The initial data says you should vaccinate somewhere around 12-14 year old girls because most of them will be HPV naive but if you wait longer they won't be any more. But too many US parents cannot imagine their little girl ever having sex and if they never have sex they almost certainly won't contract HPV so, why are we vaccinating them? Are you trying to make my daughter a slut?

If you've been a teenage American this should strike you as very silly, and doubly so if you understand biology. Teenage girls are not, in fact, celibate by default, so some of them will get horny. And if you understand biology the viral infections aren't caused by the same mechanism as pregnancy "sexual activity" is a shorthand, you can easily get infected while steering clear of anything that would get somebody knocked up. A peck on grandma's cheek is unlikely to work, but if you're sucking face for most of a Stranger Things episode that's definitely enough that you might contract HPV.

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electriclove 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Same, what is the risk/reward for someone who is and plans to be monogamous. Young or old. Cost not a concern. Give me the info and let me decide for myself, my kids, my parents.

	▲	daveungerer 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> Same, what is the risk/reward for someone who is and plans to be monogamous. Young or old. Cost not a concern. Give me the info and let me decide for myself, my kids, my parents. Did I read this correctly? You are going to decide for your children based on their plans to be monogamous? And you’re also going to decide for your parents? I can only assume you’re in the unfortunate situation where your parents are no longer capable of making decisions?

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wolvoleo 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Of course if you're monogamous sure. But I'm also 50 and very polyamorous so for me it was a no brainer getting it.

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Moto7451 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You get to make your own health choices here, but as someone who got the vaccine in my 30s, I am glad as I didn’t know about my future divorce when I got vaccinated.

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electriclove 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Couldn’t you have gotten the vaccine after your divorce if you wanted?

	▲	scarecrowbob 4 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Consider that it's possible that the person's partner may have exposed them to their then-unknown extra partners, creating one of the conditions for the divorce.
	▲	fn-mote 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		Think about your future health while your mind is clear. After the trauma of divorce is not the time. Also, I think these questions are in bad faith. It is actually hard to get people to change any behavior. The public health benefits should be a primary concern. Avoid vaccination if there is a downside to you personally, but that isn’t what I’m hearing from your comments.
	▲	Ensorceled 4 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		You are presuming that people are monogamous up until their divorce when infidelity is one of the top reasons for divorce.

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chollida1 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Ha, we had this conversation with our doctor and they said not to worry about the vaccine if you are married and monogamous. It would likely have zero benefit to us at that point in time.

Now maybe that changes if you get divorced and get a new sexual partner.

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tialaramex 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It's never a guarantee in practice, the CDC says "More than 98% of recipients develop an antibody response to HPV types included in the respective vaccines 1 month after completing a full vaccination series"