Healing “grape culture” with Toni Nagy and Seraphina Supernova

The Bothered Blog by Toni Nagy and Seraphina Supernova

July 2026

Comedian Toni Naj and performer Seraphina Supernova are touring the world with Grape Culture, a groundbreaking tragic comedy show that forces the audience to reckon with what they coin our “culture of domination without consent,” aka the culture we all live in. And they make a lot of dick jokes, because comedy is a thruway to the heart and helps us understand indigestible truths. 

This interview is adapted from a conversation between Toni Nagy, Seraphina Supernova, and our CEO, Allison Whaley, as part of our podcast series, Bothered Stories: Smut Talks (Apple | Spotify). In it, these two inspiring women share what grape culture means, how we can heal, and how comedy can play a role in that process.

When a play becomes a movement

Allison: Tell me about your show, Grape Culture. What has the audience response been like?

Seraphina: Grape Culture is a two-woman tragic comedy turned into an entire healing movement. Clips from our show are currently breaking the internet on a daily basis because the show is validating people’s experience of rape culture. And it’s also upsetting quite a few people in relationship to their suppressed experience of rape culture.

Toni: One of the people that was most offended by the comedic aspect of our show was a producer who didn't realize what was going to happen. He saw the show, and he was horrified, you know? And I was like, “my dude, men have been making comedy about tragedy since the ancient Greeks.”  

Why would we not make a comedy about rape? Why would we not make a comedy about our deepest horror? That's what men have been doing.

I think comedy is this very important, disarming and somatic group experience.

What we mean by rape culture

Allison: What does the phrase “rape culture” mean to you?

Toni: The fact that I use the term “grape culture” is rape culture. Because when I talk about these topics on social media, they're censored. When you say things that are controversial to the underpinnings of the status quo, you will be censored, you will be shadowbanned, you will be silenced.

If I came to a party, and I was like, “oh my god, you guys, I got robbed on the way” everyone would ask “what happened?” But if I came to a party, and I was like, “on my way I got raped,” people would be would be silent. That is rape culture. The silencing of the story is rape culture.

Capitalism is rape culture. AI, rape culture. The military-industrial complex and going to war, even though more than half the population is against it, rape culture. Because this all involves domination without our consent. 

It’s a bigger conversation around systems of power.

Seraphina: And through the show, we ask the audience to examine how we as individuals are upholding rape culture. How are we a part of these systems of oppression? Where can we take personal accountability, even within our micro relationships, to see how rape culture is showing up for us?

Healing doesn't happen in your head

Allison: One thing that makes Grape Culture unique is that it’s not over when the performance ends. You also facilitate somatic workshops in conjunction with the show. Why?

Toni: We don't feel our emotions in our head, we feel them in the body. 

Let’s say you’re a queer activist, but if you grew up programmed to feel shame around who you love that lives in your heart, in your solar plexus, in your tissues. How do you work that out when it's your mommy that put that shame there, or your daddy, and also you love mommy and daddy and want their acceptance?

We are doing the workshops in conjunction with the show because it felt unkind to be like, hey, we're just gonna open up a Pandora's box and then send people on their way. I think a lot of people who come to the show don’t even realize they've been raped, so to speak. The somatic workshops provide a container for people to start working on these repressed feelings that are living in the body.

Seraphina: I also think something has happened around the commodification of healing with social media, where there started to be a fear of being triggered or triggering, and a hyper-focus on not triggering, which I understand within the context of the systems that we live in. But what's true about the nervous system is that when we are triggered, we can work with the trigger as a teacher. When we run from the sensation it manifests as dis-ease, disease in the body.

When we have space created specifically to sit with the sensation, we expand our capacity. This is a neurological phenomenon, which transforms us from the inside out.

And I like to think about it as us rising from the ashes of our experience as phoenixes, as dragons and becoming bigger than the things that we lived through. 

The role of comedy in understanding, exploring, and healing from rape culture

Allison: I want to talk about the role comedy plays in your show. What drew you to that format? 

Toni: The magic of comedy is that you do not have to agree, but you are going to receive what I'm saying, because through humor it is compelling enough, or unexpected enough, or alarming enough, where you can't stop but listen. 

I couldn’t even count the amount of dick jokes that are in the show. The amount of men laughing at this show is a lot. The show is so funny, and that gets people in the door.

Comedy is very disarming and relatable—it is a way for people to see themselves in my story without re-traumatizing them. And that's when their personal healing begins.

The other aspect about comedy is that we are not intellectually processing feelings. Instead, laughter is a somatic way of allowing information to come inside of us.

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About the Authors

Toni Nagy

Toni Nagy is an internationally touring stand-up comedian, performer, and content creator most known for her viral videos where she interpretive dances her philosophies while pontificating, gyrating, and questioning culture.

Seraphina Supernova

Seraphina Supernova is a performance and visual artist exploring themes of the body, spirituality, witchcraft, feminism and self-realization. Sarah works as a professional artist, personal and professional development coach and spiritual and somatic practitioner.