Yes, I think you and your B/F should use "heavy petting" (the currently fashionable term may be "outercourse" - seed a search engine with that term) to get acquainted with your bodies and learn each others' responses.

I think there may have been real value to old-fashioned courtship practices - like from a century ago. Restricting a couple's pre-marital lovemaking to kisses, fondling, "bundling", etc forced them to not only learn to read each others' responses, but also taught some very pleasurable things to incorporate into married lovemaking. As a grey-haired old married guy, I actually wish my wife WOULD spend more time fondling, deep kissing, etc before she asks me to go down on her, or slide into her. We used the non-coital activities extensively during our engagement. They are ultimately not a substitute for relational intercourse, but I will say without qualification that without them it would have been MUCH harder - or impossible - to keep my promise to "wait for marriage".

Physical dangers: They tell me you can get pregnant from heavy petting. I can't confirm or deny that; I know we had a "pregnancy scare" before marriage when her period came late. I thought it would be a pretty rotten deal for her to end up pregnant when we hadn't even experienced intercourse!

Physical/Emotional dangers: Make sure you and your B/F understand each others' limits, restrictions, and objectives. And - more importantly - you are mutually committed to help each other abide by them. Discuss this in broad daylight - not at midnight in his dorm room! Otherwise you run the risk of feeling you've been taken advantage of, or that he failed you when you needed reinforcement. Can you ask each other, in the midst of passion, "You agreed we weren't going to do that yet - have you changed your mind?". If not, there's likely to be some heated words exchanged about who's the tease, who's pushing the limits, who can't be trusted , etc.

(I'll come back to some of the other items when I get the time. I haven't forgotten about you!)