Vulva mapping in Lisbon, also called Yoni Mapping Therapy or genital DeArmoring, is a three-hour, consent-based somatic session that helps women discover, understand, and reconnect with their pelvic body. At Body as Home, located at Costa do Castelo 96 in Lisbon, Portugal, certified somatic sex educator Dr. Liz Ray guides women through anatomical education, full-body massage, and consensual external and internal genital touch to release stored tension, restore sensation, and build an honest new relationship with the yoni. Sessions are available in person in Lisbon and in some formats online.
What Is Vulva Mapping, And What Does “Yoni” Mean?
“Yoni” comes from Sanskrit and translates as “womb” or “sacred source.” But the word carries far more than anatomy. The yoni encompasses the full landscape of the female body, from the internal organs (the womb, ovaries, and fallopian tubes) to the external pleasure parts (the clitoris, labia, and vaginal entrance), plus the vagina and cervix that bridge them.
That is a lot of territory. And it is exquisitely sensitive territory, not just physically, but emotionally. The yoni functions as the body’s intuitive antenna. It can radiate immense pleasure, endure the pain and transformation of childbirth, hold beauty and wounding from relationships, and continue evolving with age. Carrying so much sensation and history, the yoni often becomes a place of tension, numbness, or mystery, somewhere women have learned to push through rather than slow down and listen to.
Vulva Mapping Therapy, also known as Yoni Mapping Therapy or DeArmoring, is a profound investment in the physical, emotional, and sexual state of being. It is a hands-on treatment designed to deeply ground the body and nervous system, teach self-appreciation and self-love, and release deeply stored emotions and tensions in this part of the body.
Sessions at Body as Home provide a 3D tour of your own internal landscape, a space to make new discoveries, release what no longer serves you, and invite in a new sense of possibility and joy. Vulva mapping is both a learning and a release process, easing what is held and reawakening pleasure as your birthright.
How I Came to Offer Vulva Mapping in Lisbon
Before I became a somatic sex educator, I was a professional dancer, an expressive arts therapist, and a yoga teacher. Movement and the body have been my life’s work since before I had the language to describe it.
My path into women’s health began decades ago at the Maternal and Child Health Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a clinic supporting women through pre, peri, and post-natal physical therapy. From there, I worked with Feeding Ourselves in Arlington, Massachusetts, an experiential support program for women navigating eating disorders. In both settings, I kept arriving at the same truth: so much of what women carry lives in the body. Not just in the mind. Not just in memory. In the tissue, the pelvis, the nervous system.
I went on to earn my MA in Dance Movement Therapy, working primarily with chronic pain patients in a rehabilitation hospital. That clinical foundation showed me how profoundly the body holds experience, and how profoundly it can release that experience when given the right conditions.
In time, I completed my certification as a Somatic Sexologist and Embodied Sex Coach through the Sea School of Embodiment, and earned my Somatic Sex Educator and Coach certificate through the Institute for Relational Harmony Studies. I also trained specifically in Genital De-Armoring with Rahi Chun and in Vaginismus work with Dr. Martha Lee.
That is over thirty years of somatic teaching, clinical work, and movement practice, all pointing toward one understanding: the pelvis is not separate from the rest of a woman’s life. It holds her history. It holds her joy. And with the right guidance, it can hold her future, too.
Today, I offer vulva mapping sessions at Body as Home, my practice at Costa do Castelo 96 in Lisbon, Portugal.
What Are the Benefits of Vulva Mapping?
Vulva Mapping Therapy in Lisbon is not goal-oriented toward fixing anything, not a chronic condition, not a relationship, not a version of yourself you have decided is broken. It does not replace appropriate medical or mental health care. What it offers instead is something rarer: an unhurried, non-outcome-driven space to discover what is actually present in your body and to welcome it.
That said, women come to Body as Home for many specific reasons, and sessions are genuinely useful for all of them.
For Women Who Want to Know Their Own Bodies
Many women reach adulthood, or even middle age, without ever having received real, curiosity-driven education about their own genitalia. Vulva mapping sessions at Body as Home include anatomical education with models and illustrations. You leave knowing more about your own pelvic landscape than most women are ever taught. That knowledge alone changes things.
Client K.R. described her first session this way: “Liz is a skilled and intuitive body worker. The touch she provides and space she creates is gentle, safe, unhurried and deeply relaxing. My first session with her led to a lot of release, and I’ve felt light and fresh in the days after.”
For Women Healing After Trauma, Surgery, or a Difficult Birth
The pelvic body keeps a record of everything that has happened to it, births, surgeries, violations, abortions, miscarriages. Tension, numbness, and guarding are physiological responses that can persist long after the original event has passed.
Vulva mapping sessions offer a space to revisit these histories, not to relive them, but to let the nervous system complete what it started. Sessions support healing in response to trauma, violation, surgery, abortion, or miscarriage. They can also help relax pelvic tension and restore sensation after learned bracing or numbness, or help women reconnect with their bodies after a physically or emotionally difficult birth experience.
- Keaau, who completed a series of sessions, shared: “She is wonderful! Her calm, compassionate and professional demeanor all work to create a safe space in which to explore. I would certainly recommend her on your journey of discovery.”
For Women Navigating Hormonal Changes
Pregnancy, postpartum recovery, perimenopause, menopause, each of these transitions reshapes the pelvic body in real ways. Sensation changes. Confidence can shift. Vulva mapping at Body as Home is specifically useful for women preparing emotionally for pregnancy, reconnecting after a difficult birth, or welcoming new pelvic delight after menopause.
For Women Who Simply Want More
Not every woman who books a vulva mapping session is carrying a wound. Some want more awareness, more sensation, more freedom in their own skin. Sessions help women discover a variety of different sensations in the pelvic area, learn more about self-care, boundaries, and connection with the yoni, and find alternative routes away from old sexual habits.
As N.S. put it: “Working with Liz, I’ve shifted the way I see my body and how I can find pleasure. I especially appreciate her calming presence and voice that allows me to relax and lower self-consciousness about my body. Her kind encouragement instantly grounds you and I love how she meets and accepts you exactly as you are.”
Vulva mapping is also a space to receive nurturing touch without a specific goal, something many women have rarely, if ever, been given. The yoni is the center of power and creativity, the place where ideas and life are literally birthed into existence. These sessions give you insight into these aspects of yourself.
What Actually Happens in a Vulva Mapping Session at Body as Home?
A vulva mapping session with Dr. Liz Ray at Body as Home in Lisbon is a three-hour experience. That length is deliberate. This is not a clinical appointment rushed between other things. Here is how the session unfolds:
Part 1: Conversation and Context
The session begins with a conversation. We talk about what is going on in your life related to your body, any history of trauma, fears, surgeries, childbirth experiences, scar tissue, hormonal changes, or questions you have been carrying. This is where you set the context, and I understand what this session needs to hold for you.
Part 2: Anatomical Education
Where desired, we move through the anatomy of the vulva, vagina, cervix, and internal organs using models and illustrations. For many women, this is the first time they have seen and discussed their own anatomy in a neutral, educational, unhurried context. This education grounds everything that follows.
Part 3: Establishing Consent for Touch
Before any hands-on work begins, consent is established explicitly and carefully. Nothing happens in a Body as Home session that you have not agreed to. You are the one who decides what is included, what is not, and what pace feels right.
Part 4: Bodywork
With consent established, the session moves into massage, of the whole body, the abdominal area, and the external and internal genitalia, according to what was consensually agreed to. The work is slow, attentive, and follows the responses of your nervous system rather than a fixed script.
Sessions are shaped to provide a sense of safety, time to slow down and listen, space for curiosity and personal agency. Mapping sessions give you a space to recall important memories about your yoni, where you can unearth buried stories that connect the dots between your past and present embodied self. Think of it as a three-dimensional tour of your own internal landscape.
If you are doing a series of vulva mapping sessions at Body as Home, you receive ongoing information and practices to take home between appointments for continued growth.
Client R. Sutter described the effect this way: “Liz’s touch and presence is amazing. She is 100% attuned to physical subtleties and has taught me how to become more aware of my body’s intuition. Now I’m finding it easier to listen to my needs and better yet, express them.”
Vulva mapping gives the body what it rarely gets: unhurried attention, consensual touch, and the permission to feel exactly what it feels.
Is Vulva Mapping Right for You?
Vulva mapping sessions at Body as Home are for adult vulva-owners of any age, from those who are entirely new to learning about their own body, to those eager to feel or find more sensation, to those recovering from surgery or medical treatment.
Vulva mapping may be right for you if you are:
- New to your own body and want a 3D tour of your pelvic landscape
- Eager to feel or discover more sensation and pelvic awareness
- Recovering from surgery, medical treatment, or a difficult birth experience
- Going through confusing hormonal changes, perimenopause, postpartum, or menopause
- Looking to reconnect with your body after physical or emotional trauma
- Preparing emotionally for pregnancy
- Rebuilding your relationship with your body after an ended relationship
- Ready to move away from old sexual habits and discover new possibilities
- Wanting to receive nurturing touch without a specific goal attached
Vulva mapping is not the right fit at this time if you are:
- Under 18 years of age
- Within eight weeks of surgery, childbirth, or intense medical treatment (please wait at least eight weeks)
- Currently in an acute traumatic or emotionally unstable state, in which case, working with a psychologist first is recommended before scheduling somatic bodywork
These limits exist to protect you. Vulva mapping is powerful work, and it delivers most when the body and nervous system have the stability to receive it.
How Many Vulva Mapping Sessions Do You Need?
One vulva mapping session with Dr. Liz Ray in Lisbon is a powerful, complete experience on its own. Many women find that a single three-hour session at Body as Home opens something they have been waiting years, or decades, to access.
A series of sessions over time brings deeper insight and helps you integrate what you are learning. After an initial discovery call and first session, we design together what makes sense for your particular situation, including information and practices to take home between appointments, so the growth continues beyond the session space.
As client J.S. described after their first session: “It was both educational and physically satisfying. I will be able to utilize what I have learned in solo practice and with a partner. I feel much more confident going forward.”
One session is enough to begin. How deep you choose to go is entirely yours to decide.
Why Lisbon? Why Body as Home?
Lisbon is not a typical city for this kind of work, which is partly what makes it the right one. The city carries its own relationship to beauty, longing, grief, and reinvention. Those who find their way to Body as Home tend to arrive with something similar: something known, something not yet known, and a readiness to meet both with more honesty than before.
Body as Home is located at Costa do Castelo 96, 1100-179 Lisboa, Portugal, a practice space designed for exactly this kind of unhurried, embodied work. Sessions are available in person in Lisbon and in some formats online, for women outside Portugal who are looking for this work without a local practitioner.
The name Body as Home is not accidental. The premise behind everything offered at this practice is that your body is not a problem to be solved or a landscape to be managed. It is the place where your life actually lives. Vulva mapping sessions are one way of returning to it.
As S.M. described after working with Dr. Liz Ray on a sexual healing journey: “Her passion, intuitive touch, and exceptional skills create a space where healing becomes empowering and deeply personal. She helps people rediscover their essence, awaken their desires, and embody a richer, more connected experience to pleasure and joy.”
What Clients Say About Vulva Mapping with Dr. Liz Ray
The women who work with Body as Home in Lisbon describe their sessions in their own words. Those words carry more weight than any description of the work.
K.R., First session, full-body and pelvic work: “Liz is a skilled and intuitive body worker. The touch she provides and space she creates is gentle, safe, unhurried and deeply relaxing. My first session with her led to a lot of release, and I’ve felt light and fresh in the days after.”
Keaau, I was fortunate to have several sessions with Liz earlier in the year. She is wonderful! Her calm, compassionate and professional demeanor all work to create a safe space in which to explore. I would certainly recommend her on your journey of discovery.
N.S., Working with Liz, I’ve shifted the way I see my body and how I can find pleasure. I especially appreciate her calming, presence and voice that allows me to relax and lower self-consciousness about my body. Her kind encouragement, instantly grounds you and I love how she meets and accepts you exactly as you are.
Sutter, Liz’s touch and presence is amazing. She is 100% attuned to physical subtleties and has taught me how to become more aware of my body’s intuition. Now I’m finding it easier to listen to my needs and better yet, express them.
S.M., If anyone can help a man or woman through the transformation of a sexual issue, it’s Liz. Her passion, intuitive touch,and exceptional skills create a space where healing becomes empowering and deeply personal. She helps people rediscover their essence, awaken their desires, and embody a richer, more connected experience to pleasure and joy.
Clients emerging from vulva mapping sessions at Body as Home consistently report a whole new relationship with their bodies, a deeper connection and a felt sense of internal aliveness.
How to Book a Vulva Mapping Session in Lisbon
Bookings for vulva mapping in Lisbon with Dr. Liz Ray are available through the Body as Home calendar and pricing page at drlizray.com/yoni-mapping-therapy.
A free discovery call is warmly encouraged before your first session. This call gives you the space to ask questions, share your history, and understand what to expect, and gives Dr. Liz Ray the chance to make sure the session is designed well for your starting point. No commitment is needed for the call itself.
Contact Body as Home:
- Website: https://drlizray.com/
- Session page: https://drlizray.com/yoni-mapping-therapy/
- Email: eeeray22@gmail.com
- Phone: 913 403 045
- Address: Costa do Castelo 96, 1100-179 Lisboa, Portugal
“How you love yourself is how you teach others to love you.” , Rupi Kaur
Disclaimer: Sex and intimacy coaching is not psychotherapy. Dr. Liz Ray is not a licensed social worker or marriage and family therapist and offers neither therapy, psychotherapy, nor medical advice.
Key Takeaways
- Vulva mapping in Lisbon is a three-hour, consent-based somatic session that combines anatomical education, full-body massage, and consensual pelvic bodywork, offered by Dr. Liz Ray at Body as Home.
- The work is not oriented toward fixing a condition; it is an invitation to discover what is present in the body and to welcome it.
- Sessions serve adult vulva-owners at any life stage: those seeking more pleasure and embodiment, those healing after trauma or surgery, those navigating hormonal transitions, and those who simply want to know their bodies better.
- Dr. Liz Ray brings over 30 years of somatic teaching and clinical experience to every session, with certifications in somatic sexology, genital de-armoring, and vaginismus work.
- One session is a powerful and complete experience; a series of sessions deepens integration and provides ongoing practices to take home.
Frequently Asked Questions About Vulva Mapping in Lisbon
- What is the difference between vulva mapping and yoni mapping?
Vulva mapping and yoni mapping refer to the same therapeutic practice. “Yoni” is the Sanskrit word for the full landscape of female genitalia, internal and external, while “vulva” refers specifically to the external genitalia. At Body as Home, Dr. Liz Ray uses both terms to describe the same three-hour somatic session. - Is vulva mapping the same as sex therapy?
No. Vulva mapping is a form of somatic sex education and hands-on bodywork, not psychotherapy or sex therapy. Dr. Liz Ray is a certified somatic sex educator and intimacy coach, not a licensed psychotherapist or marriage and family therapist. Vulva mapping can work well alongside mental health care, but it does not replace it. - Is vulva mapping safe after surgery or childbirth?
It is recommended to wait at least eight weeks after surgery, childbirth, or intense medical treatment before booking a session. If you are unsure whether you are ready, a free discovery call with Dr. Liz Ray is the right place to start. - Can I book a vulva mapping session online if I am not in Lisbon?
Some session formats are available online. Contact Body as Home at eeeray22@gmail.com or visit https://drlizray.com/ to discuss what is available for your location. - How do I prepare for my first vulva mapping session?
No specific preparation is required beyond booking your free discovery call beforehand. Dr. Liz Ray recommends arriving without a fixed outcome in mind. The session is designed to meet you exactly where you are.
About the Author
Dr. Liz Ray is a certified somatic sex educator, somatic sexologist, and intimacy coach based in Lisbon, Portugal. She is the founder of Body as Home, a somatic practice offering masturbation coaching, prostate massage, vulva mapping, and intimacy coaching to individuals and couples in person in Lisbon and online worldwide.
With over 30 years of somatic teaching experience, Dr. Liz Ray holds an MA in Dance Movement Therapy and holds certifications through the Sea School of Embodiment and the Institute for Relational Harmony Studies. She has trained in Genital De-Armoring with Rahi Chun and in Vaginismus work with Dr. Martha Lee. Before entering the field of sexology, she worked as a professional dancer, expressive arts therapist, and yoga teacher, and spent years in women’s clinical health in Massachusetts.
