The virus is contracted by skin on skin contact, meaning that condoms may not stop the spread of infection. A condom only covers the shaft of the penis, not the surrounding area that may come into contact with their partner's erogenous zones. Symptoms of HPV may appear as early as one month and as late as two years after initial exposure. The genital warts may resemble common warts. They may also show up as hard small bumps, or tiny skin tags that resemble cauliflower.
Warts usually occur in the mouth, around the genitals or anus.
This was the case in a study published last year, which followed more than six hundred women at Rutgers who were examined every six months. Most infections lasted about eight months and then subsided, but after two years, about ten per cent of the students still carried the active virus in the vagina and cervix. Those persistent infections were most common with the virulent, cancer-linked types of the virus. In short, yes. Papillomavirus in men is associated with precancerous lesions of the penis and can progress, albeit at a very low frequency, to penile cancer.