Eli5 for people with zero biology background: hpv is transmitted by skin to skin contact, including but not limited to sex. Hpv is a virus, and like all viruses, they are very picky towards what cells they will enter, like a key only opening one lock rather than all locks. Hpv likes to live inside cells in the female cervix, which is at the top of the vagina. Only women have a cervix because only women have a vagina. So hpv is known for specifically causing female cancers.
The reason hpv and some viruses in general cause cancer but some other viruses don’t cause cancer is because it messes up the instructions for how the cell should function. It inserts itself into these instructions randomly, like a page being randomly added to instructions on how to build a space rocket. Most of the time nothing changes, but every once in a while the change in instructions is in just the right spot to cause massive problems.
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