Sensational mass trial shines a dark light on rape culture in France

AVIGNON, France (AP) — They are, apparently, the most common men. However, they are all on trial accused of rape. Fathers, grandfathers, husbands, workers and retirees – 50 in total – accused of taking turns sitting on Gisèle Pelicot’s drugged and inert body while her husband recorded the horror for his growing private video library.

The harrowing and unprecedented trial in France is exposing how pornography, chat rooms and men’s disdain for or murky understanding of consent are fueling rape culture. The horror is not simply the fact that Dominique Pelicot, in his own words, arranged for men to rape his wife, it is also the fact that he also had 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. — French defendants’ full surnames are generally withheld until sentencing. The married plumber with three children and five grandchildren said she was not particularly alarmed that Pelicot was not moving out when she visited her and her now ex-husband’s home in the small Provence town of Mazan in 2019.

It reminded him of the porn he watched featuring women who “pretend to be asleep and don’t react,” he said.

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

Céline Piques, spokesperson for the feminist group Osez le Féminisme!, or Dare Feminism! said she was convinced that many of the men on trial were inspired or perverted by pornography, including videos found on popular websites. Although some sites have begun to crack down on search terms like “unconscious,” hundreds of videos of men having sex with seemingly unconscious women can be found online, she said.

Piques was particularly impressed by the testimony of a technology expert at the trial, who found the search terms “sleep 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: around 80% of women don’t press charges and 80% of those who do see their case dropped before being investigated.

In stark contrast, the trial of Dominique Pelicot and his 50 co-defendants was unique in its scope, nature and openness to the public, at the insistence of the victim.

After a store security guard caught Pelicot recording videos up the skirts of unsuspecting women in 2020, police searched his home and found thousands of pornographic photos and videos on his phone, laptop and flash drive. Dominique Pelicot later said that she recorded and stored the sexual encounters of each of her guests and organized them into separate files.

Among those he received was Mahdi D., who testified that when he left home on the night of October 5, 2018, he did not intend to rape anyone.

“I thought she was sleeping,” the 36-year-old transport worker told the panel of five judges, referring to Gisèle Pelicot, who attended almost every day of the trial and became a hero to many victims of sexual abuse by insist that it be public.

“I guarantee you didn’t go out with the intention of raping anyone,” the prosecutor told him. “But there in the room was you.”

Like some other men accused of raping Pelicot between 2011 and 2020, Mahdi D. acknowledged almost all of the facts presented against him. And he expressed remorse, telling the judges: “She is a victim. We can’t imagine what she went through. She was destroyed.

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

In June, authorities took down the chat room where they say Dominique Pelicot and her co-defendants met. Since the trial began on September 2, it has resonated far beyond the walls of the Avignon courthouse, sparking protests in French cities large and small and inspiring a steady stream of op-eds and open letters written by journalists, philosophers and activists.

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

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