An Illustrated Guide to Giving Pleasure Without Penetration

This article originally appeared on VICE Italy.

Jüne Plã is a 37-year-old video game character designer and illustrator from France. A couple of years ago, she started posting content on Instagram about techniques you can use to stimulate your partner’s genitals using your hands, tongue and other body parts.

Today, the project has over 700,000 followers and is more inclusive in its language, body parts and tricks. Plã’s newly-released book, Bliss Club: Sex Tips for Creative Lovers – a literary adaptation of the account – proves that non-penetrative sex isn’t just foreplay.

“I thought I’d invented the technique on page 216,” I told Plã at the beginning of our interview, referring to a move where you apply pressure on your partner’s anus with your knee. She laughed and said her friend uses it, too.

VICE: Hey Jüne. How did you come up with the idea for these illustrations?
Jüne Plã: A couple of years ago, one of my partners read a VICE article about a particular erogenous zone of the vagina. It interested us both, but most of the articles about it didn’t have pictures. After some research, I made a drawing for my boyfriend so he could get there with his hands, since we couldn’t manage with his penis. It was pretty useful, so I kept with it – first on Instagram, and then with the book.

How did you research these techniques? Is it based on personal experience?
I’ve drawn from multiple sources. First of all, when I was 20 I met a guy who saw penetration as one of many options, and this inspired me to experiment more. I started watching “instructional” videos on porn sites. Obviously, a lot of the stuff was useless, but some videos explained techniques for some very respectable cunnilingus and fellatio. My friends also contributed – straight and gay.

Have you received any suggestions from your followers?
Yes. There are obviously some trolls in the comments, but there are also people tagging friends, often couples, saying, “Hey, this is what I was talking about, see?” That always makes me smile. They give me prompts to take the discussion further, and I often post in response to suggestions from my followers’ comments.

DMs are a lot more personal. People ask questions and advice, and I try to answer as much as possible, although it’s difficult to keep up with them now that the number of followers is growing.

Most of them are straight, cisgender women who usually feel guilty and/or at fault because they are unable to orgasm with their partner. But there are also guys who ask me how they can give pleasure to their partner and how to achieve prostate pleasure. Thirty-two percent of my audience is male, which is relatively high compared to other feminist profiles.

You pay close attention to diversity both in the French text and translations into other languages. How important is inclusivity to you?
For me, feminism is inclusive by definition. We must destroy the idea that language belongs to someone – to the patriarchy, to the white, cisgender, straight man. We must convey the plurality of the world. Being a feminist does not mean fighting for your own privilege, but for everyone’s rights.

What myths about sex bother you the most?
I’d rather make a wish – that we overcome the narrative that people endowed with a vulva must be able to achieve an orgasm through penetration. Meanwhile, for penis-endowed people, I hope prostate pleasure is normalised and that they experience orgasms of unexpected intensity.

What was the hardest part of writing the book?
The most complicated part was the introductory section that illustrates the anatomical parts. Researcher Odile Fillod helped me in the revision phase. But, to be honest, I didn’t know much before I started the @jouissance.club project. 

The biggest realisation was when I found out the penis and clitoris are much more similar than I thought. For example, the dicklit – the nickname that many FtM (Female to Male) or FtX (Female to X) trans people use to refer to their clitoris getting bigger after taking testosterone – is kind of a bridge between the two.

Off the top of your head, what are your top three techniques to use on a partner with a vulva, and three to use on a partner with a penis?
Firstly, I’d say that for people with a vulva, using the small shower head is a must.

Then I would experiment with the pinching technique on the clitoris.

And finally, the “Captain Hook” technique.

For techniques to try on a partner with a penis, I would start with “a new angle”.

Then I would go on to use the knee technique, like this:

And to top it off, I’d go on to prostate stimulation.

Thank you, Jüne.