Premium: Is It Asexuality, or Is It Anti-Depressants? with Freya India

Gender: A Wider Lens

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In this bonus episode for premium subscribers, Freya India highlights the complex interplay between mental health treatment, marketing psychology, medication side effects, and sexual identity.

"If you strip back some of this, marketing and look at actually what it is…what they're saying is women can't handle life without constant intervention and solutions and medication and products. And it's so patronizing."

SSRIs, or Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors, are a class of antidepressant medications commonly used to treat depression, anxiety disorders, and certain other mental health conditions. Reported side-effects of many SSRI’s and antidepressants include decreased libido and difficulty achieving orgasm. As western cultures observe a trending rise in asexuality among young women as well as a rapid increase in the widespread use SSRIs and other antidepressants for depression and anxiety, could there be link between post-SSRI sexual dysfunction (PSSD) and the identification of some individuals as asexual? As these kinds of drugs are being so regularly prescribed, are patients being adequately warned about the potential for long-term sexual side-effects?

Freya India wrote about this in her article, Are You Asexual Or On Antidepressants?: You deserve to know if your sexual identity is a side-effect.

And are the mental health companies targeting women with patronizing marketing tactics implying that women need pharmaceutically induced wellness?