I know waaaay too many women, including myself, struggling with fertility in their 30s (all sorts, fat, thin, tall, short, athletic, lazy, vegetarian, carnivorous, rich, poor, ... the only common factor was being over 30) to celebrate this.

Yeah women have a short fertility period.

If I had a daughter I would be ok with "hooking" up (which is what i did) but I have a lot of friends that married young. It depends all on what YOU, the individual, want. I don't understand why for so many people this is a hard concept to understand.

However I do think a little fucking around is good for a young woman. So many women place their self worth on their virgin status. If you think that's outdated you are quite wrong. It is importat to learn rejection & things ending. Also you gotta learn what you like sexually. If you don't want to hook up, be a serial monogamist who still fucks & experiments. Have a couple notches on your belt before you marry.

It is refreshing seeing young women not place their self worth on a relationship. Then again many of these women are starting to hit my age and the DESPERATION for babies and husband hits in.

I'm not sure that learning to have sex uncomplicated by emotion is good for women or men. We live in an age devoid of feelings and connections, other than self-regard. I'm not certain that a student film is more meaningful than love or passion.

You don't necessarily have to be going to college to just hook up, either. Being a musician, I had plenty of hook ups, at home gigs, away gigs, wherever. Only then, people called it being a slut. But then again, most musicians are sluts anyway, especially the guys!

I've always heard this phrase, 'Oh, marriage is great, or relationships are great -- you get to go on this journey of change together,' " she said. "That sounds terrible.

I don't want to go through those changes with you. I want you to have changed and become enough of your own person so that when you meet me, we can have a stable life and be very happy."

This point of view is a recipe for relationship failure. Even if you meet up with your SO later in life, you have to be prepared to meet change together. Stability is fleeting and expecting your partner to stay the same is unrealistic and confining.

But she's young. I wasn't that wise at her age either.

Hmm...more stable also means more set in their ways. Still life is going to make changes happen. Waiting looks to give you the worse of all things...more set in their ways but still will change.

I think my undergraduate college was ahead of its time. I know of very few couples that emerged from there...about 2% of the people I know of from there. Compared to my friend and his college friends who went to similar (at least outwardly) college and around 75% met their spouse at college. That maybe unusually high but still it seems like a lot more couples came out of there.

"What will I tell our daughter?"

Great advice, but she left out Don't Be Influenced By Articles About What College Girls Want.

My little bro is married to his high school sweetheart. They went to separate colleges for a while, then she transferred (better school for her anyway, so no downside). They are the happiest couple I know. It can work. Ideally a partner isn't going to limit your experiences, they will enrich them.

My college roommate and her hubby have been together for 15 years, married 10. In that time, she has taken jobs that had her working half a country away for 6 months several times, he worked a while in Australia sans her, they've both taken trips without the other. They are excited for each other when they have these opportunities, and they like to talk to each other and learn about what cool things happened/were seen while apart. They are settling down more now, just had a baby. This contrasts highly with the college boyfriend I had who called me a selfish bitch because I wanted to go tour Europe with a friend after I graduated, while he was going to have to do another semester to graduate. Should have dumped him right then. THAT is a way to tell if it's a good relationship or not-are they happy for you, or controlling of you?

SO I can see not intensively looking for a serious relationship in college. But, it doesn't get easier to find one once you're out. And you certainly shouldn't flat-out avoid one if you meet someone it works with, just to stay true to some nebulous cause of being yourself. And yes-fertility problems are common in your 30's. So if you want kids, you need to think about that. You can always go back and get another degree and career after a few years, you can't always have kids later.

I went to an engineering school with way more men than women. And I worked myself through school, interning and going to classes at the same time. It was a grind. I did my grocery shopping at 2 AM because that was the only time I had for it. There was precious little time for self-fulfillment, and almost none of the women I met were interested in me anyway. A relationship was something for after you gradated and got yourself established. A hook-up? Never heard of such a thing.

I've said this before, but I will say it again. When I was in my twenties, I thought that casual sex was a harrmless activity.

Thirty years later, I am absolutely sure that it is not. I was lucky. I had my kids in my late twenties, was only on birth control for a few years, and then my husband got a vasectomy when our second child was born.

The more reading I did, the more I realized that there are a lot of nasty diseases out there that are transmitted sexually, and herpes is probably the least of your worries. It doesnt scar your Fallopian tubes.....

Everytime you are " hooking up" you are playing roulette with both your long term health, and your fertility. And no, condoms are not a very good solution, as things like HPV and Chlamydia are both asymptomatic, and very easy to transmit.

I know three women who had children in their late thirties and early forties. All were virgins when they married, and they did not fuck around.

My only daughter started having issues with HPV at 18, and I think now, the chances of her ever having a child are extremely slim.

The hook up lifestyle is the equivalent of the high sugar diet. Lots of fun, when you are young, but odds are, you will pay for it later.

"I know three women who had children in their late thirties and early forties. All were virgins when they married, and they did not fuck around."

Have you noticed the most sane males come from countries where women fuck around. Anyways 3 women who were virgins? Who cares, they just got lucky, especially considering their age.

First off even if the female is a virgin it doesn't stop the male from transmitting things to her. As you know nobody talks about a male being a virgin, and it is never expected of them. Certainly all the blame on not being able to produce kids has historically been on women. NOW we know men affect healthy babies too. The age of the dad is equally important.

"My only daughter started having issues with HPV at 18, and I think now, the chances of her ever having a child are extremely slim."

I've known women with HPV who are still really fertile.

This is my advice to women. Fuck or don't fuck, do whatever personally satisfies you. As for virgins I've noticed many place their self worth on their virgin status (yes I have virgin friends).

Fuck around or don't fuck around. My family comes from a very oppresive culture so I love seeing young American girls hooking up. Don't let other people tell you about what you should like or should want when it comes to sex.

True, it was anecdotal evidence, but the couples I knew, were together because of religious reasons..

Not every woman or man picks up a disease that ruins their fertility by fucking around, but a certain percent do.

I don't care one way or the other how people manage their personal lives, but a large percentage of women who are sexually promiscuous or with a promiscuous man, when they were 18 are going to be infertile at 40.

If they value children, they should take that into consideration, and not be surprised when the can't get pregnant in their late thirties.

I dont think there is any empirical evidence that sexual promiscuity leads to better mental health for men, or women but if you find such a study, please link to it.

I know some people with HPV who are fertile also, but when it causes cancerous lesions on your cervix, you may have a problem.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlamydia_infection

This disease is actually a bigger driver of infertility.

I don't like to see people hook up, or dislike it, but I think a little education on the downside might be in order for emotionally vulnerable teens who are hooking up for the wrong reasons. Girls especially are looking for something they are not going to find through casual sex.

I don't particularly care if these women ever have children, but I hate the mad expensive medical scramble to "have a baby" at 40, that is at least partially funded by my insurance premiums.

Remember, the future belongs to those who show up for it.

That's the issue with human beings isn't it? Many always do the wrong things because of beliefs of what they should want.

Girls are naturally insecure, some fuck around because they are insecure and others that conversely save themselves for marriage for the same reason.

Trust me people are constantly reminding girls of the downside of sex and maintaining their purity. This is as old as prostitution itself. (I was always reminded as a teen that only women with low self esteem have pre-marital sex).

But but giving people a realistic approach is in my opinion the only option. Hooking up when you are in college and making all sorts of relationship mistakes is what college girls do. It's one of those things that most girls have to learn through experience not lectures, guidance not rules. (Now if you are hooking up when you are older then we can possibly have a discussion. )

As for your 40 year old comment, those women have trouble because they are too old to bear kids. I agree that after a certain age you shouldn't have them, but the scientific consensus is that that is not due to promiscuity but due to age.

"We live in an age devoid of feelings and connections, other than self-regard. I'm not certain"

KateC I think humans have always been this way. And from reading history we treated what we considered less thans like fucking dog shit. I think the difference is it's just more acceptable to be open about feelings of entitlement.

Trust me people are constantly reminding girls of the downside of sex and maintaining their purity. This is as old as prostitution itself. (I was always reminded as a teen that only women with low self esteem have pre-marital sex).

I agree, but they are harping on the wrong boogymen.

When I look at the social con arguments againt promiscuity, they remind me of the reefer madness commericals in the 50's.

Scary stories of dying from a botched abortion, and moral finger waging seldom impress the young.

You cant scare anyone away from the feel good aspects of sex, but you should be able to tell them, that in hooking up, you are having sex with everyone your sex partner has ever laid, and there are real diseases with real risks out there, that condoms dont stop.

VD from oral sex is an epidemic right now in Japan because the Japanese think that oral sex doesn't pass disease.

Three thousand years ago, the Jews noticed that hookers and their clients, did not have terribly long life spans, and learned some lessons from that.

Sad, that in the interest of women's liberation and progressive politics, that we have forgotten or want to ignore, so many of those lessons.

Well, gee.

Spend the better part of a couple of thousand years getting men to stick around; spend all of about fifty showing them a dozen different ways and reasons not to.