This is more of a general HPV question than specific to men or women.
My girlfriend has been diagnosed with a "high risk" strain of HPV (abnormal pap, followed by a scrape, then a diagnosis). I've read all of the CDC literature, as well as about a dozen different sites. At this point, we are both operating under the assumption that I am also infected with the same strain.
I've read up on adaptive immunity, and even spoke to a medical resident friend about how our immune systems work. I don't know everything, but I think I have at least a hand-wavy idea about helpers, killers, memory cells, antibodies, ... On to the question!
If my understanding of our immune systems is correct, and if I'm correct in my belief that I am infected with the same strain, it would seem that the claims of transmitting and having it transmitted back (I give it to her, she gives it to me, I give it to her, ... which was brought up as a concern by her ob/gyn) seems ... unlikely. Unless one person has a slow immune system, or has been immunocompromised, and is passing large amounts of virus to the healthy person; it would seem as though the swapping itself is relatively insignificant in comparison to the normal viral reproduction rate already in the infected. And once one person has fought off the HPV, reinfection from the same strain is effectively impossible, thanks to the memory-T cells and the body's increased response in such cases.
Is this the case?