It was $600 13 years ago when I got it too
I paid for it out of pocket as well with a cursory understanding of the data and why it wasn’t given to men at all at the time, and then not to men in my age range before expanding to far beyond my age range
This affected it being covered by insurance
Even to help protect women was good enough, but I had predicted the throat cancer link as well
On the self serving side, it was also a supporting reason to pursue relations with younger women going forward since they would have received the vaccine and older would more likely be carriers. The situation with men being that there is no test for men to tell if exposure occurred already and like the above person said, the vaccine doesnt work if youve already been exposed. I didnt really need a reason to date specific age range its a timeless tale, but now I can adapt it to herd immunity.
Yeah I wish I'd known about it before I got more active sexually. But I'm glad I got the vaccine eventually, I'm sure I would not have seen all variants.