Calling Out Grape Culture
The more you avoid calling something what it is, the more you give it power over you in the long run.
“The name you give a thing changes how you relate to and understand that thing.”
I call this Rule Two of psychotherapy (Rule One being nobody does anything at all unless they’re getting something out of it, even if that something isn’t clear and/or appears objectively insane).1
Rule Two explains why the entire elder Millennial generation got unrealistically sunny ideas about what “happy pills” (SSRIs) were likely to do for them. It’s why there aren’t many politicians or accountants named Cristabelle (and conversely, strippers called Karen or Susan).
It’s also at least partly why ADHD continues to be spoken about with a furtive eyeroll in many mental health sectors. It really is a ridiculous name, focused on the trivial inconvenience of “inattention” not the grim life-and-death struggle of trying to survive with a baked potato instead of a working executive functioning system.
On a related note, Rule Two explains why people find such solace in diagnostic labelling (the Rumpelstiltskin Effect). One’s very experience of suffering can change depending on what you call it (and therefore how you understand and relate to it).
When you take the power of your own vocabulary seriously, you can utilise it in ways that aid healing and vitality. You can also start being purposeful about avoiding counterproductive language, which brings me to something that’s been grinding around in my guts like a tapeworm, irritating but ignorable for a time.
A while back I noticed a trend online for serious, upsetting or adult terms to be replaced with cutesy little monikers. I’m talking grape instead of rape. Corn instead of porn. Smex or seggs2 for sex, unalived for dead, PDF for pedophile. I assumed it was a weird Internet subculture thing, and expected it to fade out quickly.
I was wrong.
It seems to have started on Reddit, where it remains most ubiquitous (from what I can tell). But at some point it escaped containment, metastasized, and started infecting mainstream thinking and discourse. I see it in content from otherwise (apparently) serious mental health practitioners, as well as posts from influencers and laypeople. I see it in video, reels, notes and longform, everywhere from Facebook to Substack.
I will be only mildly surprised if I start seeing it in academic abstracts (“Hardcore Corn Use and Shrexual Violence: A Thematic Analysis of Literature In the Field”).
I’m told by some that the euphemisms are nothing worth stressing over. Sure they’re a little silly, but nobody actually takes them seriously. It’s all just a failsafe to avoid tripping content moderation filters, which don’t like rude or controversial words. That’s a problem in and of itself (which I’ll come back to another day) but also … I don’t believe it. For one thing it looks to have kicked off on Reddit, which frankly does not appear to give a single fuck about anything (I once stumbled into an entire subreddit that was just people uploading photos of themselves sticking pencils in their urethras).
Besides, other people offer a different explanation: that it’s all about safety, not algorithmic seduction. It’s a courtesy measure to avoid triggering PTSD responses in people who have experienced trauma around sex, betrayal, abuse, violence and death.
And surely that’s a good thing. What’s so wrong with making the world easier to navigate for suffering people? Survivors who deserve compassion and gentleness, who have had to survive horrors unbearable enough to fracture the psyche?
Who can argue against such a thing?
Well … lord help me, but I’m about to.
Since I gave up my public system work for ethical (and sanity) reasons, Substack has become increasingly important.
All funds raised go towards funding independent research in psychotherapeutic treatment development. My areas of experience and interest include suicide bereavement, sexual trauma, ADHD, addiction, and the use of AI in psychotherapy.
