Hey Dr Sue — Can You Get Cancer From Eating Butt?

Short answer — yes, its possible.

As you can guess there aren’t a ton of studies on cancer and eating butt (also called analingus), but we are starting to talk more about oral sex in general and the link to cancer. Why? Because the number of cases of oral cancer and throat cancers from HPV is rising.

It used to be that when we talked about oral cancers, or oropharyngeal cancer if we want to use the technical term, we would talk about the risk from tobacco products and alcohol use.

But now 70% of oral cancers are caused by HPV.

HPV stands for Human Papilloma Virus, it’s the virus that causes genital warts and certain forms of cancers. It’s also considered to be the most common STI. There are over a hundred strains of HPV, but not all of them cause cancer.

So how do you protect yourself from getting cancer from eating butt?

1) Talk to your partners about your sexual history and theirs. It can help you make a decision about what amount of STI risk you might be exposing yourself to. That can help you make healthier decisions for yourself, and for them.

Keep in mind that there are other things you need to worry about when performing analingus other than HPV, like gonorrhea, chlamydia, herpes and parasites.