Actually, oral sex doesn’t cause throat cancer, but as two recent studies show, it can be the means of transmitting the human papillomavirus (HPV) – which does cause cancer. Two strains of HPV (16 and 18) cause nearly all cases of cervical cancer, however, it is only recently that scientists discovered that HPV 16 is also responsible for up to a third of the cancers in the oropharynx (the middle part of the throat including the soft palate, base of the tongue and tonsils).