It's a modern first world country, not the Congo. You'll be fine. You'll learn a great deal--travel really is the best education. If the only barrier is a dog, you're less tied down now than you'll ever be in your life. Think it will be easier once you have full time work, health insurance, kids? It won't be. The worst that can happen is that you'll have to come back, not having discovered anything really earthshaking. But then you can say you went.

And their economy is better than ours currently. Get out if you can. Cary writes as though you can actually build a career in the current economic climate. You can't. Too many young people are in mere survival mode. You've already sensed this, I think. Give Australia a chance.

I don't really view doing anything in your 20s as "upending". The 20s is our time for taking these risks. It's not like you're giving up everything to chase some mirage born of a mid-life crisis. You're young and have no commitments to children or work with a future. Go, go--you won't regret it.

another brick in the yellow brick road leading to the Dan Savagization of the country. Yawn.

Tracy, you're not so typical. I'd had a couple of boyfriends by the time I was 24 and they were the only ones I had sex with. I had girlfriends who were the same and a couple who hadn't been laid yet by anybody. That is every bit as normal as what you describe--in fact, I bet any young woman with any self respect doesn't have dozens of encounters with strangers or near strangers.

Statistics would seem to bear this out--we attempt relationships with people we like; they don't all work, but eventually most of us marry one of them, for better or...well, you know. It's messy and doesn't always go according to plan (although often it does), but that's the pattern. You get the idea. You can think it's all dullsville and uncool and whatnot, but it's still the pattern.

I've known people (men and women) who have casual sex with all their friends and acquaintances. They are narcissistic, very insecure, and have boundary issues. They are not psychologically healthy and are notably unstable in other areas of their lives. They are not capable of being in any kind of relationship long.

I'm not ever exchanging bodily fluids with other people on the "fling" basis you describe. Like binge drinking, it is clearly unhealthy behavior and has never tempted me (or a lot of other people. Yes, some of us do make it through college without being constantly drunk). It is physically dangerous (disease) and playing emotional Russian roulette--why put yourself through it?

I have two daughters now and I'm hoping to teach them to love themselves enough not to give in to this garbage-girl mentality.

Of course the whole "saving virginity" thing is silly, if only because nobody really does it unless they marry in their teens, something that doesn't work out much any more. But isn't there something in the middle? Anything? Really, articles like this make me depressed for my children's sakes. I hate to think of them being used and tossed aside like that. It's so empty and pointless and there are so many more important things in life. Even if it's fun guess what--there's more to life than having fun, too. Like learning how to be responsible for yourself.

It's like saying that just because Prohibition was wrong, everyone must be a skidrow alcoholic to be "empowered". Somebody's overcompensating here. Why not enjoy the intoxicating wine of true relationships founded on love and trust--something you've clearly never experienced, in your race to puke all over yourself after binging on the rancid beer of "hooking up".

Doesn't look like a lot of fun to an outside observer. Just sort of sad, really.

I'm judgemental? You must have missed the other 2/3 of the letters which were much harsher than I was. Like the one who said TFC was a predator--I think her argument is vapid, but I wouldn't go that far.

Many of us have been writing that we simply aren't into the casual sex thing, or weren't when we were Tracy's age. Whats wrong with that? Why do we all have to be groaning, heaving Pussycat Dolls? What's judgemental is referring to girls who don't want NSA sex with the whole football team sneeringly as "precious", "fragile", "princesses", etc. etc. What's with the sneers, really?

No, maybe we just know what we want. Respect, love, caring, connection, and so on. Maybe we want a future with a partner we can care about. Maybe we are just intelligent enough to realize that climbing into the sack with all and sundry isn't going to get us that.

So go ahead, get into attack mode. But pray tell what you are getting out of all your hookups besides crabs and a stinky drip. And don't give me this line about how much you've learned from each and every man. You can't have learned anything from them when you can't even remember all of them.

The bars of every college town are filled with aspiring writers who think that constant fucking is some kind of "life experience" they can write about. TCF's article shows us how that mentality can make even titillation boring.