Sensational mass trial casts a dark light on the rape cult…

AVIGNON, France (AP) — They are, at first glance, the most ordinary of men. Yet they are all on trial for rape. Fathers, grandfathers, husbands, workers and pensioners – fifty in all – accused of taking turns in the drugged and inert body of Gisèle Pelicot while her husband recorded the horror for his growing private video store.

The harrowing and unprecedented ordeal in France exposes pornography, chat rooms and men’s disregard for or blurred understanding of consent fueling rape culture. The horror is not only that Dominique Pelicot, in his own words, caused men to rape his wife, but that he also no trouble finding dozens of them to participate.

Among the nearly two dozen defendants who testified during the first seven weeks of the trial was Ahmed T.. The full surnames of French defendants are usually withheld until sentencing. The married plumber with three children and five grandchildren said he wasn’t particularly concerned that Pelicot wasn’t moving when he visited her and her now ex-husband’s home in the small town of Mazan in Provence in 2019.

It reminded him of porn he’d seen with women “pretending to be asleep and not responding,” he said.

Like him, many other defendants told the court that they could not imagine Dominique Pelicot drugging his wife, and that they were told she was a willing participant acting out a kinky fantasy. Dominique Pelicot denied this and told the court his co-defendants knew exactly what the situation was.

Céline Piques, spokesperson for the feminist group Osez le Féminisme!, or Dare Feminism! Said she believes many of the men on trial were inspired or perverted by pornography, including videos found on popular websites. Although some sites are cracking down on search terms like “unconscious,” there are hundreds of videos online of men having sex with apparently passed out women, she said.

Piques was particularly struck by the testimony of a technology expert at the trial who had found the search terms “asleep porn” on Dominique Pelicot’s computer.

Last year, French authorities registered 114,000 victims of sexual violence, including more than 25,000 reported rapes. But experts say most rapes go unreported due to a lack of tangible evidence: About 80% of women do not press charges, and 80% of those who do have their cases dropped before it is investigated.

In stark contrast, the trial of Dominique Pelicot and his fifty co-defendants has been unique in scale, nature and openness to the public, at the insistence of the victim.

After a store security guard caught Pelicot filming unsuspecting women’s skirts in 2020, police searched his home and found thousands of pornographic photos and videos on his phone, laptop and USB drive. Dominique Pelicot later said that he recorded and saved the sexual encounters of each of his guests, neatly organizing them into separate files.

Among those under his care was Mahdi D., who testified that when he left the house on the night of October 5, 2018, he had no intention of raping anyone.

“I thought she was sleeping,” the 36-year-old transport worker told the panel of five judges, referring to Gisèle Pelicot, who was present almost every day of the trial and has become a hero to many sexual abuse victims for insisting that it is public.

“I agree that you did not leave with the intention of raping anyone,” the prosecutor told him. “But there in the room it was you.”

Like several other men accused of raping Pelicot between 2011 and 2020, Mahdi D. acknowledged virtually all the facts alleged against him. And he expressed his remorse, telling the judges: ‘She is a victim. We cannot imagine what she has been through. She was destroyed.”

But he wouldn’t call it rape, even if admitting to it would get him a lighter sentence. That prompted prosecutors to ask the court to show the graphic videos of Mahdi D.’s visit to Pelicot’s home.

In June, authorities deleted the chat room where Dominique Pelicot and his co-defendants met. Since the trial started on September 2, it has resonated far beyond the walls of the Avignon courtroom. protests in French cities large and small and inspires a steady stream of opinion pieces and open letters written by journalists, philosophers and activists.

It has also attracted curious visitors to the city in southeastern France, such as Florence Nack, her husband and 23-year-old daughter, who made the journey from Switzerland to witness the “historic process.”

Nack, who noted that she too was a victim of sexual violence, said she was disturbed by the testimony of 43-year-old truck driver Cyprien C., a defendant who spoke in court that day.

When asked by Chief Judge Roger Arata whether he recognized the facts, Cyprien C. replied that he “did not dispute the sexual act.”

“And the rape?” Arata pressed. The defendant remained silent before finally answering, “I can’t answer.”

Arata then began describing what was in the videos involving him. They are presented only as a last resort and on a case-by-case basis. But for many in the courtroom, such detailed descriptions can take several minutes and be as taxing as watching them. Gisèle Pelicot, in her early 70s, has chosen to remain in court while the videos are shown. Since she can’t see, she usually closes her eyes, stares at the ground, or buries her face in her hands.

Experts and groups committed to combating sexual violence say the unwillingness or inability of defendants to admit to their rape speaks loudly about the taboos and stereotypes that persist in French society.

According to Magali Lafourcade, a judge and general secretary of the National Consultative Commission on Human Rights who is not involved in the trial, popular culture has given people the wrong idea about what rapists look like and how they operate.

“It’s the idea of ​​a hooded man with a knife who you don’t know waiting for you in a place that is not a private place,” she said, noting that this is “miles removed from sociological, criminological reality of rape.”

Two-thirds of rapes occur in private homes, and in the vast majority of cases, the victims know their rapists, Lafourcade said.

It can sometimes be difficult to reconcile the facts with the personality of the accused, who are described by loved ones as loving, generous and attentive companions, brothers and fathers.

Cyril B.’s tearful older sister told the court: “It’s my brother, I love him. He is not a mean person.” His partner described him as ‘friendly, with his heart in the air and full of attention.’ She insisted that he is not “macho” and that he had never forced her to do anything sexual that she was not comfortable with.

While Lafourcade does not believe that “all men are rapists,” as some court hearings have concluded, she said that, unlike the #MeToo accusations that have ensnared French celebrities, the Pelicot case “makes us understand that rapists could in fact be anyone’.

“For once, they’re not monsters – they’re not serial killers on the fringes of society. They are men who look like the ones we love,” she said. “In that sense there is something revolutionary.”