I must say i'm on the fence here... Sex isn't that important, and the 'Don't worry about it if you want to have it' advice is likely correct.

But i do think that taking your time to think through your moral position is a good thing. I guess i'd say you should worry about it when it happens. Sex, whether casual or regular is nice and you should worry about the emotional impact - but it is like diplomacy, two boards which look the same could be very different depending on how the players feel about each other.

You really need to know how you feel and be able to empathise with people to get a good idea if a particular sexual encounter is morally acceptable...

That said, there is massive pressure in society to have sex and be good at it (as people mentioned above) similarily massive pressure to get married (cause who would want to find fullfillment while alone??) it is just assumed...

Sex is not that big a deal, it's like a rollercoaster. I mean sure rollercoasters are fun, everyone likes them (well some people are a bit scared of the idea) but they're not a big deal... If that approach is taken with sex (with all the relevant safety concerns, cause you really don't want to go on a rickitty old one that lools a bit rotten) you should be fine.

Also there are many kinds of sex and no 'right' way to do it, some people like different things and it's not all about the penis and cumming. Orgasms are great but there is lots of fun apart from that, and the emotional impact of trusting someone and bonding with them can be way better. (like wine and cheese, sex and love are each great on their own, but they much better together - and i say this without advocating any religious or moral position, while being completely anti-marriage; i'm basing this on personal opinion and not the lies engrained in our culture, either fairy tale happy endings, the sexual idol worship of our media, nor any bias apart from my own morality, rational thoughts and emotional understandings.)

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As putin mentions we have a problem. Population and economic growth go hand in hand, they are aspects of a culture dedicated to self-preservation and self-promotion. The self-preservation is evident in putins post, he wants to save something; but it is everywhere, the thing that don't self-preserve died out a long time ago.

However growth may not be possible, and halting population growth may trigger a downward economic spin... We do need to be aware of what's going on and i think replacement rate reproduction males a lot of sense, but we ma be over the carrying capacity. I should be ok if we mere stop feeding our meat animals tonnes of protien which we could provide for hungry humans... Or don't have kids til our parents die...w

@CM - Everyone is different on this issue. I know lots of people (strangely most are guys) who will refuse to have sex with a someone outside a relationship. I also know lots of people who will hook up with someone casually at a party. Its a matter of personal preference. You said you wanted help forming your opinion, so I'll tell you what I think. From all your past posts, you don't seem like a guy who would be into casual sex. You'd do it, that's for sure, but you'd wake up and regret it. Just my opinion of what would happen with you.

In college, there are always the people who just go out and have *lots* of sex. Of the ones I know, to a person they have a person they've slept with, woken up and gone "what the FUCK did I just do." Those experiences will make you the butt of jokes for a long time if people find out. But, then again, you are a man and not a woman, so you have an advantage. Loose women are frowned upon still, while men get high-fives.

Also listen to what FlemGem said and think about your partner later in life. Should she chance be less experienced than you, you will 1) Have a history she may resent 2) Have to deal with any insecurities she may have arising from it 3) Have to deal with the fact that she may be worse than your previous bedmates. With my girlfriend I have had to deal with 1 and 2, and its not all that fun. Two years and I still get shit for it.

But, if you choose the other route, and opt to be free in college (as is certainly within your rights and not a wrong thing in and of itself) I only have to say this:

Don't be silly, wrap your willy.

And on the other topic of this thread, the population issue, I'm going to have to side with Putin. There are simply going to be too many of us before long, and adequate population controls are going to be needed, because we sure as hell won't be able to feed them all.

Most of the worlds fisheries are over-fished; the world's deserts are expanding rapidly; icemelt is raising the sea level slowly, leading to larger areas of coastal flooding and effectively sowing the land with salt and killing most crops (grain-based ones, at least); droughts and floods are becoming more common as weather patterns become more extreme. Most of the Wheat, corn, and barley crops in the United States will be lost this year. If the world had a few billion more people, this would be absolutely devastating.

Economy and population go hand in hand. Stronger economies have smaller population growths. Even within nations, the poor breed more than the richer. This is problematic on several scales. The long term answer to all of these problems is economic growth, but we must come up with short-term solutions until the global economy is balanced....and lord knows how long that will take, since the world has been re-balancing since the rise of the West and only since WW2 has been moving towards equilibrium.

Growth is not what reduces family sizes, it is development.

Growth can be in different kinds, but population growth pushes economic growth up, technological growth (developing new technologies) can mean less resources used for more economic value. So more efficiency, and i think this will be the only thing which saves us, if indeed we can avoid catastrophe... A new economic model which puts development of low resource tech might be necessary...

Births per familu does indeed inversly correlate with income, and as a rational economic stratregy this makes some sense (not to suggest those trapped in poverty are rationally thinking this through) the more offspring you have the more likely one of them will be successful. It is a strategy seen in many species, when risks of dying increase they invest in lots of offspring instead offocusing on raising one and pouring all resources into making it the best one... This is what it looks like if we see humans as animals and compare them with other animals.

I hereby defend Putin's right to take extreme viewpoints. Many people have died defending those rights!