The Gisèle Pelicot Case shows how little men think about women

Photo: MAEVA DESTOMBES/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images

The crime at the center of the Mazan rape case is almost too big to fathom: Over the course of nearly a decade, a man drugged his wife and invited at least 70 strangers to rape her in her own bed. The woman, 72-year-old Gisèle Pelicot, found out about the operation when police showed her the more than 20,000 videos and photos stored on her now ex-husband Dominique’s devices. Over and over again the same scene played out: A rotating cast of men performed sex acts on her inert body as she lay sprawled unconscious on her bed, incapacitated by the super dose of lorazepam Dominique mixed into her evening ice cream. When the side effects from the drugs set in, Gisèle became convinced that she was developing Alzheimer’s or a brain tumor – and Dominique took care of her. He drove her to neurological specialists, followed her to the gynecologist, was ready for an MRI. He was the love of her life, she said, her “perfect man”, someone she was “completely proud of”. She had never imagined that he was capable of such”immense” betrayal until she saw it for herself.

When the case was heard in Avignon in the autumn, Gisèle waived her right to privacy and issued three months of grueling testimony for the public to analyse. But even after all those hours of questioning, it’s not easier to understand how this happened. In his final statements to the court, Dominique said he wanted to “subdue an unruly woman … without making her suffer.” He now faces up to 20 years in prison after admitting to the scheme in its entirety. As for his co-accused, their fate is less clear.

It’s men aged 26 to 74, who come from all different professions, men, in many cases, with children and partners and even grandchildren of their own: “Monsieur Tout le Monde,” or Mr. Everymanwhich French media reports have baptized the defendants en masse. Psychological experts who evaluated the accused found, per local outlet BFMTV“no personality disorders”, “no particular deficits”, “no psychological pathologies” to explain their participation, except perhaps a lack of empathy. A handful of the men have previous convictions for domestic violence and sexual assault, while several face charge of possession of child pornography. But overallhave they been described in court as good fathers, good husbands, loving and gentle – ordinary men except for the extraordinary behavior caught on camera.

Because Gisèle demanded that Dominique’s videos be shown during the trial, the courtroom has seen these All push their penis into her mouth, held open by Dominique; roll her lifeless body on its side to penetrate from behind; attacked her anally while she remained limp and lifeless. Yet faced with the reality of their actions, very few have admitted that they – whether consciously or not – committed rape. The majority have flown away, deflected, denied, fumbled for all possible justifications, while Gisèle sat silently by.

“I am not a rapist, but if I had wanted to rape, I would not have chosen a 57-year-old woman. I would have chosen a beautiful one.” said Ahmed T., a plumber who claimed to have assumed that Gisèle was merely shy. “I don’t ask myself any questions, like a zombie on autopilot,” said Romain V., an HIV-positive former truck driver. He insisted that during all six of his visits he thought Gisèle was just “half-awake, tired”, even though the videos showed her snoring while he performed oral sex on her.

French law does not consider consent in its legal definition rape, which recognizes only penetrative sexual acts committed “by violence, coercion, threat or surprise.” The omission opens a loophole that the defendants have easily exploited, claiming they believed Gisèle was a willing participant in a sex game. “I could not have guessed that it was without her knowledge, since her husband is supposed to protect her,” as Mohamed R., a man previously convicted of raping his young daughter, argued in his testimony. Another defendant, Husamettin D., pleaded that it was not he who had done anything wrong, but Dominique: “I never thought that guy could do that to his own wife.” In his video, Christian L. gave the camera a thumbs up after collapsing over Gisèle’s comatose form, fumble in his testimony that “my body raped her, but my brain did not.” Most of the defendants fell back on the same idea: it is the man’s intention that matters, not the woman’s consent.

Of course, the clues that something was wrong were everywhere, starting with the name of the chat room where these men met Dominique: “Without her knowledge.” Then there were the ground rules he set for entry into the Pelicots’ home. The accused could not appear smelling of cologne or cigarette smoke, because foreign scents might raise Gisèle’s suspicions later. They had to wait until she had fallen unconscious to sneak into the house, and when they did, they had to speak in low voices to avoid waking her. Hands had to be warmed on the radiator before entering the bedroom and clothes removed in the kitchen. Several men said that Dominique rushed them out at Gisèle’s slightest sign of awakening.

Yet apparently none of the defendants bothered to wonder why so much secrecy would be necessary if Gisèle was in on the plan. While several admitted to finding the situation suspicious – one went as far as to compare the encounter with “making love with a corpse” – only two walked awayand not a single one went to the police. Jacques C., 74, said that when he left the Pelicots’ house, he considered going to the police after noticing that Gisèle showed “no reaction” when he “caressed” her. But the next day “life took its course again” and that was that. Patrice N. said he never reported Dominique because “I didn’t want to waste my time at the police station, and anyway, who would believe me?”

Belief is the sticking point in most cases of violence. Typically, the only witnesses are the two parties involved, and even when the victim has evidence—for example, a rape kit carried out in a hospital—it still comes down to one person’s word against the other’s. That was not the case in Mazan, where prosecutors had not only Dominique’s confession but also his dizzying digital footprint to prove their case. Without these archives, it is possible that Dominique would have continued to abuse Gisèle “until she was killed”, as her lawyer put it at the trial. But irrefutable as the evidence is, it failed to spur most of the men to real introspection. Out of the 51 defendants charged, none of them tried to check on Gisèle, even though they touched her unresponsive body. It never occurred to them to do so.

Since she discovered her ex-husband’s plan, it has questions that have haunted Gisele is Why? Why would Dominique do this to her and why did so many people help him? Before 48 days, she showed up and witnessed what she called a “trial of cowardice.” She allowed the worst moments of her life to be dissected again in public, hoping to make sense out of the incomprehensible. Her determination has won widespread support from the women who gather outside the courthouse every day, and from observers around the world who are fighting against the appalling horror of the case. But still, the trial has not answered Gisèle’s question; in a year marked by a resurgence of men’s rights, it has only raised new ones.

I think of how exuberantly incel the catchphrase “your body, my choice” bounced around social media in the wake of Donald Trump’s re-election as young men celebrated the triumph of a traditional agenda. At a moment when the gains of equality again feel fleeting, the Pelicot trial makes me wonder how many men prefer not to consider a woman’s humanity at all. Dominique’s plot was relatively easy to pull off: Looks straight within half an hour’s drive of his home, Dominique was able to find dozens of strangers ready and willing to come and assault his wife. Several of these strangers came back with full knowledge of the circumstances once, twice, as many as six times. And even with Dominique’s entire tape showing us exactly who did exactly what, the majority still had the gall to say they weren’t responsible, revealing a fundamental belief that their feelings about a sexual encounter should define what it was – no matter what the woman wanted. In the end, this is the common thread: the defendant did not think about the woman sprawled on the bed. Because they only have themselves to blame.