Feminist, activist, co-founder of @nordicmodelnow
London, England
Joined June 2009
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Anna Djinn retweeted
‘Sex work is a special hell that men have created for women’. Or ‘The costs of selling your soul to survive: it’s priceless’ By an anonymous prostitution survivor
“When I prostituted myself, it was to subsist and survive, not live lavishly. I wasn’t buying extravagant things, or living my best life.
I was eating whatever was available at the gas stations at 2am and washing it down with a bottle of cheap vodka; hoping whatever god on this earth would do me the small favour and kill me with alcohol poisoning to release me from the waking hell I was in. I would get close to blackout drunk praying to whatever kind benevolent being would end this nightmare in my sleep. I’d wake up the next morning disappointed I was still alive.
I didn’t care about living at that point. Living was just too painful for me. The amount of hurt I was in, the suffering I had to keep quiet on, was too much for me to bear. Yet I could never actively harm myself in the sense of taking it into my own hands. I just wanted to be gone.
I was in hell. Pure hell. I can’t speak publicly because no one knows the truth, but at least I can say it here. Sex work is a special hell that men have created for women. It’s not empowerment, not once did I feel empowered.
I felt like dying each moment I was still involved. I hated every man involved. I dreamt of strangling them in my sleep.
Yes, every man who’s reading this and is watching porn or hiring prostitutes, I hate you. I wished in a just world, you would be taken from society, because whatever person I could’ve been at this point in my life is gone; you’ve killed her, and now here stands her corpse; ridden with all the scars, and imbued with all the pain, shambling lifelessly, pretending that life is normal.
I am not the only one, but men like you killed me, in the sense that whatever hopes and dreams are dead, whatever happiness gone, and you did it for the sake of your pleasure. I hate you.”
Anna Djinn retweeted
I'm a psychiatrist and a dad. There are 3 types of medications I'd be extremely cautious about giving my kids.
Not because kids don't suffer. Because once you understand what these drugs do to a developing brain, you can't unsee it.
1. Antidepressants (Prozac, Zoloft, Lexapro)
About 1 in 20 American kids take them. When the FDA looked at all the trial data, kids and young adults up to 25 had higher rates of suicidal thoughts and behaviors on the drug than on placebo.
They're studied for 8 to 12 weeks, never beyond a year. Median real-world use is 5 years. And juvenile monkeys given Prozac had brain changes that didn't reverse years after the drug was removed.
2. ADHD meds (Adderall, Ritalin, Vyvanse)
The youngest kids in a classroom are about 40% more likely to be prescribed them. We may be medicating immaturity.
Stimulants don't improve academic performance. Kids just feel more confident about their work. The behavior benefits faded by about 3 years in the largest long-term study. And kids on them ended up about an inch shorter on average.
3. Antipsychotics (Abilify, Seroquel, Zyprexa)
The ones that worry me most. In my experience, kids often end up on them to treat side effects of other drugs.
In monkeys, they caused an 8 to 11% loss of frontal lobe volume. About 5% of patients a year develop tardive dyskinesia, involuntary face and mouth movements that can be permanent. I've seen people gain 50 to 100 pounds.
What I'd do first:
→ Look at the home. Do therapy as a family.
→ Fix diet, sleep, movement and sunlight. US kids get about 60% of their calories from ultra-processed food.
→ For hyperactivity, try parent-child behavioral therapy.
→ If it isn't dangerous or severe, take a breath. Love them, stay present, and give it time.
My message isn't never use medication. It's that this is a serious decision, so do the non-drug approaches first.
If you're struggling, call or text 988 (US) or your local crisis line.
Comment TAPER and I'll send you my free safe tapering guide.
Anna Djinn retweeted
Scientists put more than 60 baby monkeys on Prozac. Some changes were still there long after the drug was stopped.
We can't ethically randomize children to SSRIs. But researchers at UC Davis and the NIH did it with young monkeys, at doses matched to what kids get.
The monkeys started at about 1 year old (roughly age 4 to 6 for a human), took Prozac for about 2 years, and were followed for up to 18 months after.
What they found:
1. Sleep. More night waking, more fragmented sleep, less deep sleep. It persisted after stopping.
2. Social behavior. One study saw less dominance and more submissive behavior, during and after.
3. Attention. More errors on sustained-attention tasks, and it persisted. It makes me wonder how many kids on SSRIs later get labeled with ADHD.
4. Emotion. About 40 to 45% fewer emotional reactions. In my experience feelings usually come rushing back after people come off.
5. Brain. PET scans showed lasting changes in the serotonin system into young adulthood.
Monkeys aren't kids. But they're the closest thing we have.
Pregnant, or considering an SSRI for a child under 18? Treat it as a very serious decision. Don't let anyone rush you. Try non-drug options first. And if your child is already on one, never stop it suddenly. Taper slowly with their doctor.
Comment TAPER and I'll send you my free safe tapering guide.
Anna Djinn retweeted
The UK averages 159 rainy days a year and ranks fourth in Europe for rainfall volume. The last major reservoir was finished in 1992. Since 2017, the privatised water companies have sold off at least 35 reservoirs and bulk storage sites. The government have now been warned that “Day Zero” – empty reservoirs – could arrive before Christmas.
We are a damp island that somehow managed to privatise the rain, sell off the storage and then act surprised when the taps run dry. The corporations took the infrastructures, paid the dividends and left us with a hosepipe ban and a warning about water rationing at Christmas.
And meanwhile, successive governments let this happen while enabling enormous data centres to guzzle up huge amounts of water and energy
Yet another example of the UK being turned into a corporation asset grab at the public’s expense. This is not just government negligence. It was a choice.
Anna Djinn retweeted
“No one is prescribing antidepressants just because someone went through a breakup, lost a job, or lost someone close.”
I can say with confidence that this is categorically untrue across a range of different countries.
Not only that, it is common practice to be described SSRIs without any diagnosis after a 5 min appointment.
People have always gone through hard times. Severe depression has been around for a long time too. What is different now is that we can better tell when ordinary sadness has turned into something that lasts and gets in the way of daily life.
No one is prescribing antidepressants just because someone went through a breakup, lost a job, or lost someone close. Those are painful situations, and people usually need time, support and sometimes counselling. Major depression looks different. The low mood or loss of interest sticks around, sleep and appetite change, energy drops, thinking gets harder, and the person struggles to manage ordinary tasks. The risk of suicide also goes up.
Trials with large numbers of people show antidepressants work better than placebo for moderate to severe depression. The improvement is not the same for everyone, and some people don’t respond, but quite a few do when the medicine is chosen carefully and reviewed. Therapy helps as well, and many patients do best with both.
Grief and ordinary sadness need room. Severe depression usually needs treatment. Calling them the same thing leaves a lot of people without useful options.
Anna Djinn retweeted
Interesting article by Alan Cassels. bit.ly/4ikOtsc. Don’t “ask your doctor if (Drug X) is right for you.” You can be sure that a drug rep has already seen your doctor, so your doctor says what Big Pharma says. US Health Secretary Bob Kennedy has wanted to ban drug ads for prescription drugs to the public for a long time but it is difficult because of the 1st amendment about free speech. Drug ads to the public are extremely harmful and a major reason why the US, in contrast to Europe, has had no increase in life expectancy since 2012.
Anna Djinn retweeted
So, it's now against the law to do something you haven't done yet but you might possibly do it sometime in the near, medium, or far future?
Am I understanding this correctly?
Anna Djinn retweeted
I'm not even sure how to properly capture this but the U.K is imposing new "Respect Orders" with associated penalties that could include up to two years in jail. They can hit you with those Respect Orders if you "are likely" to distress someone. That leaves the gates wide open for the thought police to toss your a$$ in jail for pretty much anything.
"Courts can impose a Respect Order where there is evidence that a person has engaged in, or is likely to engage in, behavior causing harassment, alarm or distress, and where an order is necessary to prevent further anti-social behavior."
(Article in first comment)
Anna Djinn retweeted
Why should a pensioner on a £13K income be exempt from income tax when a person of working age is not? Those of working age do not receive free travel or all sorts of other discounts to which pensioners are entitled. We do not exempt people from tax based on how many dependents they have, or how much housing in their area costs, so why exempt individuals based on age?
John Healey, the chancellor, is expected to announce a 3.9 per cent rise to the full state pension while protecting those on lower incomes from income tax thetimes.com/uk/politics/art…
Anna Djinn retweeted
The most effective weapon against Israel has been redefining words until self-defense becomes the crime.
“Genocide” once meant the deliberate attempt to destroy a people. Hamas wrote that goal into its charter, yet the army fighting it is the one called genocidal.
“Apartheid,” “colonialism,” “occupation”—same method. Change the meaning and repeat the new one so many times it becomes gospel.
The only real "offense" to those fighting linguistic warfare is the very existence of the world's only Jewish state.
Anna Djinn retweeted
BBC BROKE EQUALITY LAW AND GOT CAUGHT
Carrie Gracie spent 30 years at the @BBC. She spoke fluent Mandarin. She ran the Beijing bureau. She was one of four international editors, two men and two women.
Then in 2017 the BBC was forced to publish salary data. Gracie looked at what her male equivalent, the North America editor, was earning. He was on nearly double her salary. She had explicitly said equal pay was a condition of taking the China role. The BBC agreed. Then quietly paid her far less anyway.
She asked for equal pay. The BBC offered her a raise that still left her below the men. She turned it down. She resigned from the China post in January 2018 and published an open letter telling the licence fee public exactly what their broadcaster was doing.
The BBC then put her through nearly a year of an internal grievance process that went nowhere. It took three meetings with the Director-General and the threat of an employment tribunal before she got a public apology and the backdated pay owed to her. The total came to £361,000.
She donated every penny to the Fawcett Society (@fawcettsociety), the gender equality charity. She said the fight was about principle, not the payout.
A publicly funded institution, legally obligated to follow equality law, paid women less than men in identical roles, got caught, dragged it out for a year, and only coughed up under threat of a tribunal. That is not a pay oversight. That is a policy.
Gracie did not ask for a favour. She asked for what she was owed. The BBC made her fight for it like it was a privilege.
Sources: @BBCNews, @guardian, @thetimes, @Independent.
Anna Djinn retweeted
There are endless unproven theories about how SSRIs 'work'. But any remotely experienced pracitioner should be able to see that the principle mechanism by which they 'work' (beyond placebo, confirmation bias & natural recovery over time) is by numbing one's total emotional life.
Anna Djinn retweeted
My time in Edinburgh’s ‘saunas’ by Venessa MacLeod
nordicmodelnow.org/testimoni…
Anna Djinn retweeted
My time in Edinburgh’s ‘saunas’ by Venessa MacLeod
“The process of prostitution was not glamorous like it’s portrayed on TV by the likes of Billie Piper. It’s a strange combination of monstrous and monotonous. You’re expected to sit around in a lounge in a tiny tight dress all day, waiting for a man to come through the door and pay you for the pleasure of touching his penis.
At the sauna I was in, there was a bell on the front door which announced a man’s arrival. We were literally conditioned like dogs. The bell went; you stopped whatever you were doing and rushed to the lounge. You sat and flirted and presented yourself as a cute, fun, cool, sexy girl that was gagging for it.
Every time that bell went, I was overcome with an overwhelming sense of dread. No amount of makeup could hide the bubbling disgust towards a man that repulsed you.
I’d think ‘please don’t pick me’ to myself. At times I was borderline hostile to the men to try and repel the ones I thought were particularly horrible or that I’d heard horror stories about. But I quickly learned that it was a guarantee they’d choose you.
Imagine being forced into having sex with the man on public transport who glares at you until you get off a stop early or who makes you so uncomfortable that you share your location with a friend. Men in brothels are much the same. They enjoy making women uncomfortable, they enjoy knowing you had no choice, that you could not refuse them or tell them to stop.
These men got off on thinking their cash was a ticket to your autonomy and they relished the power of that.
Make no mistake, a prostitute is not the one in control. I had to lie to myself and believe I was in control just to make it through the day, because the alternative was too terrifying. But the truth is, if a man has purchased your body and you tell him to stop, or that he’s hurting you, he won’t. A brothel does not create a safe environment for sex work, because there is no such thing.
One of the most violent incidents happened to me in a brothel. I was pinned down against the bed by a man who choked and hurt me. I begged him to stop. He didn’t. When he left the room, I came out shaken, crying, bruised and told the manger what had just happened. She shrugged and told me that it was just part of the job…”
To read more, see the link in the next tweet.
Anna Djinn retweeted
The Woman of the Day is the Anglo-Saxon noblewoman Godgifu of West Mercia, the only woman to remain a landholder in Britain after those robbing Normans swept in and stole everything that wasn’t nailed down (and quite a few things that were).
Of course you’ve heard of her. You’ve heard of the Godiva Procession which was instituted in 1678 by Coventry Fair to commemorate the legendary ride by the Lady.
Taking pity on the people of Coventry suffering grievously under her husband's oppressive taxation, she called his bluff that he would repeal the taxes if she would strip naked and ride through the streets of the town, clothed only in her long hair. She only agreed on the condition that everyone stayed indoors and shut their windows, but a tailor known ever afterwards as Peeping Tom disobeyed and was struck blind. Allegedly.
It was all bunkum. Absolute bunkum.
Lady Godiva’s real name was Godgifu. She married Leofric, Earl of Mercia, but both she and her husband were major philanthropists and among the most munificent of the Anglo-Saxon nobility until the Norman Conquest in 1066 (and those robbing Normans came along, etc).
In Anglo-Saxon times, in laws dated around 1008 AD, women enjoyed full property rights, from peasant to nobility. They could own land, farms, houses. Upon marriage, a husband was legally required to give his wife a Morgengifu (Morning Gift): land, money, or goods, which remained her independent property that she could sell, give away, or manage as she chose. Women wrote their own wills and left property to whomever they chose including children, servants, or religious institutions, and they didn’t need their husband's permission.
All that stopped after 1066. The new feudal system tied land ownership to military service, something women were barred from providing. Women became the chattels (property) of their husbands if they were married, or their fathers if they were not, a legal state known as coverture. Still, I’m sure the Normans thought they were being progressive and inclusive, two words I’ve come to loathe. But I digress.
Godgifu survived the death of her husband and was mentioned in the Domesday Book, one of the few Anglo-Saxons and the only woman to remain a major landholder after the Conquest.
Godgifu certainly would have ridden a horse but not in protest and certainly not minus her clothes. Still, the idea of it proved quite a crowd pleaser at Coventry Fair in 1678, even though the first fake Lady Godiva was actually a lad. Yes, I know. Some things just don’t change.
In the intervening years, the myth was spiced up by the Puritans to prove a moral point but dampened down by other Protestants to make it fit for delicate ears. Never forget: the objectification of women is eternal, along with its fraternal twin, misogyny. The two generally go hand in hand.
Despite several attempts to shut down the procession — in 1845, the Mayor got fed up with the crowds jostling to get a better view of her, expostulating, “It’s a disgrace”, and in 1854, the Bishop of Worcester protested against “a Birmingham whore being paraded through the streets as Lady Godiva” — it continued as a annual event until the 1960s.
Godgifu’s date of birth is unknown but she died in her mid-fifties in 1067 after the Norman Conquest of 1066. The Domesday Book of 1086 notes that the lands formerly held by her had passed to others. Men of course. Chattels are property, and property cannot own property.
Married women finally achieved independent taxation in their own right in 1990. Prior to that, their husbands were responsible for paying tax on their income unless she obtained his signature and consent to claim her own single person's allowance and pay tax on her own earnings. Her unearned income — such as investment or savings interest — still legally belonged to him.
And of course, the "marital rape exemption" — the legal assumption that a wife could not withhold sexual consent from her husband under the marriage contract — was not formally abolished in English law until 1991.
935 years. It only took 935 years in this country to demolish the legal status and definition of Woman as Property, and despite the Supreme Court ruling, we still find ourselves having to dismantle the definition of Woman as a feeling — with political parties, Civil Service departments, with trade unions, charities, retailers, and with sporting bodies.
I know many of us are tired of fighting the same old battles but keep going, sisters.
“We woman suffragists have a great mission — the greatest mission the world has ever known. It is to free half the human race, and through that freedom to save the rest.”
Emmeline Pankhurst, 17 October 1912.
Anna Djinn retweeted
‘Most of us are brainwashed into thinking we chose it’
SURVIVOR'S TESTIMONY
"As a teenager, I was raped and my rapist made pornography of it. Despite being under 18 and my perpetrator being 20 years old he was not charged with manufacturing child pornography – in fact, I was charged with making a “false statement” to police because they asserted that the video meant I consented, despite the fact I was crying and pleading for him to stop as he told me he was going to choke me until I passed out. Because of this I became an alcoholic and an abuser of benzos.
Shortly after my 18th birthday, I was recruited by a woman who worked in a peepshow/strip joint who told me it would be a good way of “reclaiming” my sexuality by “exploiting men” and that a pretty girl like me would make a bucket load of money. Because my sense of self worth was so low I made the mistake of accepting her proposition.
For every $2 that was put into the peepshow coin machine, we would get 75 cents to $1. Lap dances/private shows were $100 for the men but we received only $40. The owners of the sex shop where these peep shows were available pocketed the rest. If we did not undress within a certain time limit we would have our earnings penalised. If the men who bought private shows ejaculated on the floor instead of the provided hand towels, WE were the ones that had our earnings penalised. As with any legal ‘sex work’ in Australia, you are considered a subcontractor which means that your taxes, GST, superannuation (retirement money,) etc. are not managed by the employer, but you, the “goods” for sale are responsible for all of it. As a result, there is no guarantee of shifts, no sick days (it’s typical for ‘peep show girls’ to be penalised for taking days off by being given less shifts, or shifts that are known to be slow and difficult to make money such as a 9-10am start and a lunchbreak finish.)
We were not permitted to turn down any man who requested a private and I learned very quickly that I was the one being exploited and I wasn’t making any money. The men were old men – grandfathers who you’d see at the farmers markets on the weekends with their grandchildren; they were normal 9-5 men in business suits who decided they needed a quick wank on their lunch break. There were young men who were the same age as me who thought it was funny because they were “seeing a hot chick degrade herself.” The young men were the worst, because instead of tipping with notes, they would literally pelt you with $1 and $2 coins and point and laugh at you picking them up as you left.
I had men old enough to be my father or grandfather asking me to repeat their pornographic scripts while masturbating in front of me. Many told them that they thought it was “hot” that I reminded them of their own daughters, their daughter’s friends or even their granddaughters. There were men who were very open about the fact that they were school teachers who requested that you acted like a schoolgirl and would tell you about the students they wanted to assault.
The rooms for the private shows all have “panic buttons” but many of the other young women who worked there told me tales of men who would forcibly digitally penetrate them, ask how much for intercourse or other sexual acts and get angry when refused. I knew of other young women there who had been raped on the job and let me tell you, the panic button didn’t save them and then they had their earnings with-held when they would want to finish their shift early. And they were specifically instructed to not go to the police and were told it was their fault for not pushing the panic button. Shifts would be anywhere from four to twelve hours so the loss of earnings could be enormous.
And I think the most disturbing thing I found out about that place was the young woman who recruited me? The owners had hired her when she was 16 years old and were fully aware that she was underage. They didn’t give a shit because in their words “there was more money” in getting a 16 year old girl to take her clothes off while men masturbated than there was in say, a 30 year old.
If sex work is work, then why does our value as women who may work in the flesh trade go DOWN over time? Why are there no increased rates and certain employment securities for long-term employees? Why do the owners of flesh trade establishments PREFER young, naive and inexperienced girls to work for them?
Many years later, after managing to leave the peep show and move on with my life, and stay sober and clean, my de facto relationship went on a rapid and brutal downward spiral.
The funny, selfish and generous man I met became a mean, selfish and reclusive. He wouldn’t let me see my friends and he would get angry and threaten violence if I spoke to my parents. He would expect me to pay for everything.
Finally it culminated in him calling my friend the n word and calling her a bitch because she was talking about astrology with me. I told him not to talk to her like that and in response, he exploded with a stream of verbal abuse at me, shoving me violently and threatening me with more violence. He smashed my artwork that I’d decorated our home with. I knew I had to leave him and thankfully, I did. I reported him to Immigration as he was reliant on me for his Visa and he was removed from the country.
However, as I was attempting to study full time while on welfare and my ex had left me with several thousand dollars worth of debt because he made me pay for everything and contributed a small pittance when he felt like it (which was part of his controlling and abusive behaviour.) I didn’t want to end up homeless and I was struggling with debts.
So I ended up having to prostitute myself to make ends meet. It was even more awful than working in a peep show. I nearly ended up in a psychiatric hospital because of a massive relapse with my PTSD. It was more psychologically scarring than living with a man who had chipped away at everything I was as a person over five years.
The men were even worse than the peep show, because when men have given you money for sexual acts on them, they feel like they own you and they can do what they want. One night I had a man pull a knife on me and rob me of all the cash I had made that night. It was a fortnight’s worth of rent.
Thankfully, after seeing a social worker who referred me to an exit service, I managed to find an arrangement in order to keep my home and not have to return to selling my body to entitled men.
Strip clubs, peep shows, pornography and prostitution are NOT empowering, fiscally rewarding or an expression of one’s agency or an example of making a choice.
The women who charge several thousand dollars as “escorts” or “courtesans” or have sex with their boyfriends on webcam and repeat the mantra “sex work is work” are liars and do not represent the majority of us who end up in the flesh trade. They are a sheltered and well-funded minority who are the covers for pimps and men who feel entitled to sexual access to women’s bodies and lives.
If even ONE woman is for sale for men’s sexual entitlement, WE ALL ARE.
No girl or woman should ever have a dollar sign over their head or be for sale or rent, ever, anywhere."
To read more, see the link in the next tweet.
Anna Djinn retweeted
Informative blog about how harmful it can be to tell people that emotional problems like depression are caused by their brains. It reduces people's sense of agency and stops people understanding their emotions as useful signals about their lives.
When we tell people that their depression stems from a chemical imbalance, are we inadvertently giving them the wrong mindset, by telling them that they have little control over their own emotions? Are we depriving them of the tools they need to recover?" reclaimyourinnerlife.com/p/t…
Anna Djinn retweeted
Some more rainbow magic. Photo taken yesterday in St Michael's tower on Glastonbury Tor. The little blobs are raindrops, it wasn't easy keeping the rain off my lens 😂Despite a coat I was absolutely drenched as the rain and wind were a bit intense.
Anna Djinn retweeted
“Death is Biologically Real; Laws About Death are Social Constructions”
Advocates of the higher-mind theory of death have long acknowledged an obvious fact: in brain death, the body or organism remains alive.
So they say that when the capacity for consciousness is lost, the individual dies in some other, non-biological sense — making death a social construction.
Dr. Michael Nair-Collins points out the problem with this reasoning:
“If death is a social construction, then death did not exist prior to humans who socially constructed it.”
Nair-Collins advocates for transparency about these facts and respect for differing perspectives:
“What is needed are laws and policies that are just and respectful of different cultural and religious traditions as they apply to unconscious living bodies, which is precisely what ‘brain dead’ bodies are.”
“In brain death, we have a living unconscious body. Only when we start with that premise can we coherently discuss ethical and policy questions about death determination, organ transplantation, and disputes about treatment after brain death.”
