How to practice vaginal mapping (& why every woman should)
When I was in the beginnings of my sexual awakening, a common piece of advice I heard from sex educators was to masturbate often and explore your body as much as possible.
While I agree with each of those pieces of advice, I think they’re often misunderstood or even taken too superficially.
I know from my personal experiences, there was a time when it seemed like anytime I laid down to self-pleasure, I couldn’t break out of doing the same thing I always did— rubbing my clitoris until I had a beautiful, peaking orgasm.
As powerful as clitoral orgasms always felt, I knew there was more.
Especially inside of me.
For a lot of women, it’s common to get stuck in a habit of clitoral stimulation because there doesn’t seem to be anything pleasurable going on internally— at least not without a lot of effort or a willing partner. I know for myself, whenever I went to explore myself inside, I felt numbness or discomfort in most places. Nothing like the immediate pleasure from playing with my clitoris.
Like most women, I concluded that this experience meant I was simply one of those women that couldn’t orgasm internally.
What I didn’t see (or wasn’t willing to see) at the time was the fear I had around exploring myself. There were so many past events and memories stored in my vaginal tissues that I had pushed down to the point of almost forgetting them entirely.
This resistance showed up in my impatience and expectation to only receive pleasure from this part of my body.
As soon as I felt discomfort or even pain, I would freeze and feel angry with my body.
For me, it was important to remember that just like the feminine psyche, our sexual organs are complex and beautiful. They experience the full spectrum of emotions just like we do in our emotional bodies. In fact, I’d go as far to say that our sexual organs are the second largest conduits to our emotional bodies (besides our hearts).
As my willingness to meet my body expanded, I began practicing slow exploration sessions of my yoni.
I released the expectation to feel pleasure and instead set out with the intention to listen to what my yoni had to express.
My desire was to form the deepest, most trusting relationship I’ve ever had with my yoni. When I started thinking about, I realized there were times in my life where my partner or doctor had touched myself more than I ever had.
Through vaginal mapping, I have not only deepened the connection and love I feel for my body, but I also have experienced a whole host of other benefits, like:
Increased sex drive and sexual energy
Stronger mind-body-arousal connection
Diminished fear for having my partner touch me
Increased confidence
More confidence to touch myself, explore, and understand what my body is communicating
Learning how to release tension from my tissues
Increased wetness during sex
Learning about to soften, relax, and open more during sex
Deeper, more fulfilling internal pleasure during sex
Decreased discomfort, and increased pleasurable sensitivity
Instant grounding and feeling of calm confidence after practice
Learning how to facilitate emotional release through yoni work
Vaginal mapping is the single most powerful practice a woman can do to transform her life and relationship to her body and sex.
If we are not touching and learning ourselves, then who is? Taking complete responsibility for building a genuine relationship with your body is the basis for all women’s health work.
I have gotten to a point in my own practice where with just one touch, my yoni speaks to me its message and needs.
When I say the female body is a spiritual practice, this is the foundation of that.
For women that have experience sexual trauma, birth trauma, or any form of emotional trauma surrounding their yonis, this is the practice that will bring you back to yourself.
While talk therapy can have its place, touching yourself and reestablishing safety for your yoni is the most transformative therapy there is. This is a practice where you are in complete control and can go as slowly and gently as you need to. In fact, I recommend all women go slow. Slower than you’re probably comfortable with. It’s too often that we rush ourselves—especially this part of ourselves.
If you’re enjoying this content, you can gain access to my free yoni mapping course here. It’s 100% free and will all be delivered via email over 10 days. Each day you’ll receive a new insight and practice you can implement immediately.
How to practice vaginal mapping
Give yourself permission
This is not for purely pleasure. This is not a forceful massage. This is about listening to your body and hearing the messages it has to share with you. This often means accepting and sitting with discomfort, numbness, sensitivity, emotions, disgust etc. whatever arises. All of these feelings are messengers for what needs to be worked through. I will go over below what some common feelings may represent for you.
The intention for vaginal mapping is simply to slow down, be present, and feel what your tissues have to say to you.
Set the space
Give yourself plenty of privacy. Including space to be vocal if you’re able to. Letting sound out during vaginal mapping is very common and very supportive in releasing the tension and emotions that are stored in your tissues.
Make sure you are comfortable, warm and feel that you have plenty of time. You don’t want to feel rushed.
Grab the materials
Grab a high-quality oil (ideally something organic and cold-pressed). I highly recommend a natural, organic oil over any kind of pre-made lubricant.
It also can be supportive to use a handheld mirror during parts this practice. If you’re someone who tends to disassociate while touching yourself, a mirror can be a handy tool for helping you stay connected to yourself.
Begin with yoni gazing
To begin warming up to the practice, lightly drizzle oil on your inner thighs, pubic mound, and external labia. Get all of the tissues of your external labia and vulva feeling comfortable and hydrated. Observe your yoni in the mirror while you rub the oil over yourself. Take a few minutes to spread your lips and really take in the sight of your anatomy. Note how unique, delicate, and beautiful your folds are. Try to say some nice things about yourself in your head or aloud.
Here are some examples of compliments you can give your yoni:
You have such a beautiful ——— color.
The way the labia folds into my clitoris and opening is really pretty.
I look like a sweet flower.
My scent is really delicious and natural.
I look wet and juicy.
My skin is so soft and supple down here.
External tissue massage
Once you feel comfortable rubbing the oil around, you can begin to deepen the massage. For this stage of the mapping process, you are going to begin checking on all your external tissue.
Starting with your pubic mound, you’ll want to firmly but comfortably grab your fatty tissue and almost roll it between your fingers. You want to check for any lumps, grainy tissue, or extra tense tissue. Your pubic mound should feel like hydrated, healthy fatty tissue that is easy to roll between your fingers. Many women experience tension and dehydration in this area so don’t worry if yours feels tight or tense. With more consistent massage of this area, along with other womb health practices, this area will begin to rehydrate more over time.
The next area you’re going to work through are your outer labia lips. Similar to your pubic mound, this should feel like soft, flexible, fatty tissue. Firmly but lovingly pinch the tissue between your fingers, kneading your way down. Take note of any tension, lumps, or graininess that you feel in the tissue.
Vulva mapping
Once the fatty tissues of the vulva are massaged and adequately explored, you can begin exploration of the delicate vulva.
Spread your lips and use an oiled finger or two to feel everything from the top of your clitoris, down to the sides of your vaginal opening. Notice the change in texture of the skin here to a mucosal membrane. Notice where on your vulva your clitoris continues to feel stimulated and excited. Often you can feel the legs of clitoris all the way down to the opening of your vagina. This is a delicate area so don’t necessarily use the same massage pressure as you did on the labia or mons pubis.
Vaginal mapping
As more blood flow reaches your tissues, your vaginal muscles will respond with slight opening and potentially by lubricating. It is safe and OK to enter yourself with a finger even if you are not fully aroused or showing any signs of wetness. Be sure to use plenty of oil and go very slowly. This part of the practice can bring up a lot of fear and emotion, especially if you have any traumas from abuse, birth, medical examinations etc.
I suggest entering yourself and imagining that you’re exploring the full circumference of yourself, inch by inch. Start on the left side, feel into what the tissue has to say, and then shift to the left-upward quadrant. Continue around in a full circle until you’re ready to move another inch deeper. If you reach a point in the practice where you feel completely overwhelmed and want to stop— do that. Remember this is about listening to your body.
On the other side, if you find yourself feeling frustrated with the numbness or lack of feeling, try not to override your body’s signals and push harder. Touch yourself firmly but gently and tell your body it’s ok for it to take its time to reactivate. Over time, the more you do this practice, you will feel your tissues slowly waking up and coming back to life— eventually with feelings of pleasure and full health.
Rest and integrate
When you feel done, slowly remove your finger and place both hands over your vulva. Hold your yoni as you thank your body for this experience and all that it shared with you. If it feels true, this could be a nice moment to make a commitment to your yoni about how you plan to show up for it going forward.
Some women find it helpful to do a 5-10 minute journaling session after their practice. This is a nice way of integrating what came up during the practice as well as to keep track of changes or improvements in their tissues over time.
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Vaginal mapping will change the way you touch yourself, feel about yourself, and how you have sex. It’s a slow but powerful practice that unlocks a natural process within every woman to help her reach her full body empowerment. The key is to show up consistently and trust the process.
With love,
Jules