Struggling with sexual pace in my first relationship - is this normal?
Hey guys, looking for some perspective from people who've been here.
I'm 28, this is my first proper relationship with labels. My boyfriend is 25, only came out about a year and a half ago, and his previous sexual experiences were all hookups through Grindr while he was closeted. We've been seeing each other for 2 and a half months and made it official about a month ago.
The intimacy has been building - we've done some soft stuff sexually and in general there seems to be compatibility between what he likes and what I like, he stays over usually one night on the weekends. But we haven't had penetrative sex yet.
I find myself wondering if the pace is about his history because of sex that was always emotionally disconnected from any real relationship and whether integrating the two is just new territory for him.
On one side, I found it really sweet at the beginning, we didn't do anything sexually maybe six weeks in really. But emotionally I find myself feeling unsexy sometimes, maybe because in my past situationships we were always jumping down each others pants multiple times within the same night. I'm also usually the one initiating physically this time.
Is this a patience thing? Is this a compatibility thing? Has anyone navigated something similar with a partner who came out later and had a very different sexual history to what they're experiencing now in a relationship?
I know the main answer would be to talk about it, which I'm getting to, but being that I can be anxious about certain things I'm just trying to get a feel for the whole thing.