The topic of female pleasure has historically been shrouded in taboo, censored and stigmatised all around the world. It’s often been viewed as inappropriate, secondary, or even irrelevant—an attitude that's resulted in the almost complete censorship or misrepresentation of it in mainstream media and culture. For too long women have been made to feel ashamed and embarrassed to talk about their pleasure, explore their own bodies, or even discuss their preferences with partners. This has led to a huge gap in understanding, education and sexual pleasure, with 20% of women unable to orgasm compared to 2% of men.

As one of the world’s leading sexual wellbeing brands, Durex wanted to use their channels to help close this gap and celebrate female self pleasure, encouraging women everywhere to explore and experience their own. It would be the first time Durex entered the conversation around female pleasure—moving away from ‘female comfort’.

We created a 12-part illustrated series on female pleasure for Durex’s social media. Each illustration worked as a standalone post, but when viewed together told a singular narrative of a woman exploring her own pleasure and sexuality.

We worked with an incredible female artist whose work is rooted in female sexuality, and who skirts around censorship issues with clever use of negative space, suggestive subject matter and space metaphors. Her style is euphemistic, empowering and innately feminine. Leaning into her style, we brought to life one woman’s journey as she reached beyond the stars to touch the moon—likening female pleasure to that of an unexplored galaxy.

Each illustration used space metaphors to focus on a different stage of exploration, from themes of masturbation, oral sex, female anatomy, sex toys, sexuality, solo and partnered sex.

We were able to say what we wanted to say without explicitly saying it.