I first heard about MobCraft Beer maybe a year or so ago. They quickly fell off my radar─as many things often do when you're a college senior. MobCraft Beer chooses the names for their beer by crowdsourcing, which means consumers vote on the best name. One of the names that was proposed, and ended up making it to the top eight, was "Date Grape." It may seem funny to a juvenile mind, but to someone who has experienced rape culture firsthand, it brings back old memories I never want to relive.
At first, I didn't know how I should emotionally respond to a name that shows how much of a joke rape culture is to someone who clearly hasn't experienced it. I almost couldn't believe someone thought it was funny to name a beer "Date Grape." That specific someone being Jeremy Bergener of Westminster, Colorado. Yeah. I just put your name out there. I want this to be the first thing anyone sees when they Google you.
Now, I'm not blaming MobCraft for the name. The founder of MobCraft apologized for the name in a Facebook post, and admitted that he feels "horrible that this oversight happened" since the team didn't have protocols to vet names in place before this incident. They changed the name to "Dates & Grapes, an English Ale"─which isn't nearly as bad─before removing it entirely due to the backlash.
When You're Raised in Rape Culture
Here's the thing—a name like that shouldn't have even made it to the top eight via crowdsourcing. The guy who proposed it actually wrote "Date rape isn't funny, but date grape..." in a Facebook post that has since been taken down. What on earth could you find funny about that? The moment I heard the name, I was disgusted.
Jeremy Bergener, I'm addressing you. Do you know what it's like to be date raped? I'm going to hazard the guess that, no, you really don't. But, you know who does? I do. Me and millions of other women. Approximately one in four college-aged women will experience date rape and 27% of them won't even realize that what happened to them meets the legal definition of date rape. And it doesn't help that the victim survey questions are incredibly biased. Have you seen those questions?
But, can you really blame them for not knowing? Society ingrains rape culture into us from the very beginning. In high school, girls are sent home for wearing tank tops or shorts that are "too short" because they're too distracting for boys. They get sent home and miss a day of education for what? Because this is America, and God forbid a teenage boy sees a girl's shoulder.
Our education system is literally telling us that women are less important than men. This, in turn, helps fuel the rape culture society perpetrates. It means the statistically few survivors (yes, I said survivors─not victims) who come forward are asked demeaning questions and forced to relive their trauma—and what for? Because somewhere between 2-8% of the people who say they've been raped are lying. So, obviously you can't trust us.
When You Experience "Date Grape"
When someone meets me, they would never think I've been raped. Or that three different people have raped me. No, because I hide that from the world. I never came forward because I knew my university would sweep it under the rug—just like they and other universities have done so many times before.
In fact, I watched one of my friends report their situation to the university and the university found her rapist innocent. I remember her coming to my dorm room trying to cry as silently as possible with her clothes ripped under her jacket. Do you know what it's like to experience that on either end? No, you don't.
You know what the first question I always get asked is? "Were you drinking?" I can tell you that no, I wasn't. I was 100% sober. The second question: "Well, what were you wearing?" My pajamas. How on earth is sweatpants and a t-shirt provocative? This gets followed with a barrage of questions that still somehow blame me. I don't even get the respect to have them ask me about what he was doing, how much he drank, etc.
How You're Treated When People Know
Do you know what the doctor who examined me the day after I was raped said to me? I do. Every single word she said is still carved into my memory: "Are you sure he did it? It doesn't look like he broke your hymen."
Yeah, I'm sure. I remember sobbing into my pillow and wishing I could die while it was happening. Because, to me, nothing was worse than how helpless I felt in that moment. At the time, anything was better than the amount of violation I was going through. The amount of pain I felt while he held me down. In that moment, the human rights I have for merely existing were violated.
The moment someone finds out you were sexually assaulted, they look at you differently—like you're a piece of dirty laundry that needs to be hidden under a dorm bed. But that's not what gets me—it's that your very credibility is undermined if people find out. In the case of date rape, it's not the survivor whose favor the court is in—it's the perpetrator. Because "innocent until proven guilty" and all that jazz.
Well, that doesn't fly for me, nor for the millions upon millions of women across the globe who had to watch the Stanford Rapist basically get a slap on the wrist. I cried when I read his victim's letter to him, and you know why? Because even though I obviously write, she put into words the emotions I couldn't express for years.
"Date Grape" Never Should Have Been Up For Discussion
It's taken me years to even remotely consider discussing this outside my friends or my therapist. And, look, I still can't put my name to it for fear of what will happen. To this day, I still won't tell my boyfriend what's happened to me. And it's because of shit like this—where the name "Date Grape" actually gets voted into the top eight of a crowdsourced beer company.
Sure, I get that beer culture suffers from a macho air. The Brewers Association shows men of drinking age are three times more likely to drink beer than women—but I can drink a hella bitter IPA that a lot of guys would shudder at. There's nothing macho about this. People should've learned from Budweiser's gaffe last year that rape culture just isn't acceptable in any context.
If you or someone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, you can call the National Sexual Assault Hotline: 1-800-656-HOPE (4673)