You know that wives' tale about oral sex causing cancer? Turns out it's true, if the genitals in your throat have HPV, the vaccine-preventable virus that also causes cervical cancer.

American researchers say throat cancer caused by HPV (generally transmitted to throats during oral sex) has "increased significantly" over the last 20 years.

Researchers tested tumor samples from 271 patients with certain types of throat cancer diagnosed from 1984 to 2004. The virus was found in only 16 percent of the samples from the 1980s—but in 72 percent of those collected after 2000. The researchers estimated that over all, throat cancers caused by the virus have increased to 2.6 per 100,000 people in 2004 from 0.8 cases per 100,000 people in 1988. If the trend continues, by 2020 the virus will be causing more throat cancer than cervical cancer, the study concluded.

Unlike cervical cancer, "oropharyngeal cancers" have no screening equivalent to the pap smear. So if you suck a lot of dick or twat, either get vaccinated or spend the rest of your life worrying that every "lumpy, swollen lymph node" and "lingering sore throat or earache" might be blowjob cancer.

The last 20 years in American history shall heretofore be known as the Golden Age of Oral Sex. Start point: Monica Lewinsky. End point: Throat cancer panic. [NYT, image via Piotr Marcinski/Shutterstock]