We agree that this is very important. We have added the Introduction to expand on these points. Unfortunately we could not conduct these suggested analyses. We had very little change in sexual behavior given the way we measured it. Also, we did not have confidence in estimation of sexual behavior for those who did not participate at Wave 2, which could have increased the change. Thus, we have maintained our original analyses, but make this comment in the Discussion (see p. 12-13): Second, probably because the majority of the participants had already experienced coitus prior to the first data collection and because we measured types of sexual behavior and not frequency or some other aspect of behavior, there was high stability in sexual behavior over the one year of this study. Recent statistics show that the majority of Australian year 10-12 students (approximately 15-17 years) have engaged in some form of sexual behavior [12]. Therefore, in order to capture sexual subjectivity as it emerges and develops most rapidly along with change in sexual behavior, future studies may need to begin with a younger population. Recently, Hensel et al. [31] found that, in their adolescent participants, sexual self-concept had a bidirectional relationship with sexual experience, and the same may occur for sexual subjectivity. Future research could examine the possibility of bidirectional relationships between sexual subjectivity and sexual behavior. In addition, no previous study has examined the timing of pubertal development and sexual subjectivity. Evidence suggests that adolescents that mature earlier, compared to their peers, form romantic relationships earlier and experience sexual behaviors earlier [11,55]. In the current and past research, the link between age and sexual subjectivity has been relatively weak [34]. Substituting timing of pubertal status for age may provide more evidence regarding individual characteristics that influence differences in sexual subjectivity and its development over time.
Therefore, in order to capture sexual subjectivity as it emerges and develops most rapidly along with sexual behavior, future studies may need to begin with a younger population.