Remember when Michael Douglas was (at least in the tabloids) teetering between life and death because of a stage four throat cancer diagnosis? And all the sanctimonious clean-livers were all, “Well, serves Michael Douglas right for all those years of cigarettes and booze”? Uh-huh, well, it turns out that Michael Douglas’ throat cancer had nothing to do with all the booze he drank and all the cigarettes he pensively smoked, but it had everything to do with the marathon cunnilingus sessions he bestowed on his lovers.
Straight from the vagina-glazed mouth of Michael Douglas himself comes the revelation that Michael Douglas’ throat cancer was apparently caused by one of those pesky strains of HPV that some studies have suggested is putting men who perform oral sex on women at a greater risk of contracting throat and mouth cancers. When asked in a Guardian interview whether he blamed his years of drinking and smoking for his cancer diagnosis, Douglas casually and candidly responded by saying that his cancer was caused by his cunniligingual prowess:
No. Because without wanting to get too specific, this particular cancer is caused by HPV [human papillomavirus], which actually comes about from cunnilingus.
I did worry if the stress caused by my son’s incarceration didn’t help trigger it. But yeah, it’s a sexually transmitted disease that causes cancer. And if you have it, cunnilingus is also the best cure for it.
So, now we know that Michael Douglas goes down on Catherine Zeta Jones all the time. Good for her and everything, but some physicians were skeptical about Douglas’ medical assessment. Not content to rely on the good word of that guy who play Liberace on TV, the Guardian sought out some advice from a physician about the true origins of Douglas’s throat cancer:
Mahesh Kumar, a consultant head and neck surgeon in London, confirms that the last decade has seen a dramatic rise in this form of cancer, particularly among younger sufferers. Recent studies of 1,316 patients with oral cancer found that 57% of them were HPV-16 positive.
“It has been established beyond reasonable doubt that the HPV type 16 is the causative agent in oropharyngeal cancer,” said Kumar, who also testified to increased recovery rates among this kind of cancer sufferer. This would help explain why Douglas was given an 80% chance of survival, despite the advanced stage of his illness.
However, Kumar expressed scepticism that Douglas’s cancer was caused solely by HPV, and surprise at Douglas’s assertion that cunnilingus could also help cure the condition. “Maybe he thinks that more exposure to the virus will boost his immune system. But medically, that just doesn’t make sense.”
In other words, the oral sex explanation makes for a nice headline, but it really serves only to further burnish Michael Douglas’ reputation as a raging sex god with a silken tongue and electric fingertips. Nevertheless, we should all thank him for sharing. I’m sure Catherine Zeta Jones is not at all mortified.
Michael Douglas: Oral sex caused my cancer [Guardian]
Image via AP, Luca Bruno