Did you ever wonder about your husband after the Gisele Pelicot case?

[Seymorbutts]

I’m a lesbian (thank god!) so I’ve got no skin in this game but I read something on here earlier about the sheer number of seemingly ordinary men who participated in the rape of Gisele Pelicot. I’m assuming their own wives had no idea either. It’s not only horrific but got me wondering are most men actually like this, walking around pretending to be normal but actually have these sick fantasies they’re just waiting for the opportunity to act out? And that got me wondering if you’re married to a man, did the Gisele Pelicot case ever lead you to suspect your own husband could have ever done anything like this, if not to you, to another woman? If so, how did you cope with it?

Exactly, it's not just the men who did it. It's all the men who knew or suspected and did nothing

I have twice been on a train where teenage girls/young women were sexually assaulted and each time all the "lovely husbands" looked the other way and I was the only person to do something

We were in Avignon in the summer and there was one taxi driver - he seemed very cultured, retired professor vibes, classical music playing, new, lovely, almost obsessively clean car. And for some reason both DH and I had the same thought that he could be one of the many men on the periphery of the Pelicot case.

No, not before that case and not now! There has never been a time in 25 years where things haven't felt right, I havn't felt right or any other things that could be attributed to such behaviour, I believe 100% that my husband is a good man and whilst I am aware that Gisele Pelicot and other women believed the same, I am not going to hold my husband on the same suspicion ‘just because’!

Same (and more likely behaviour) for cheating though. Do you suspect your partner of cheating? The stats are much closer together there – 13% of married women versus 20% of married men, and the gap gets even smaller for unmarried men/women (to within 4 percentage points).

I'm guessing you don't suspect her of cheating or you wouldn't be in the relationship. Yet clearly she could be, and the stats support it.

Bit ridiculous to pose this question really.

I must be living on planet fluffy then 🤷‍♀️

No, I have not for a single second considered DH would act in this way.

Firstly, because after 30 years of marriage, I am confident that he is broadly a very decent person. He considers things carefully, treats people well, and is consistently unselfish, whether 'in public' or behind closed doors. His behaviour comes from his own inner moral code, not through any desire to be seen as "a good guy".

Secondly, he falls into the category of men whose sexual desires and fantasies all have a common theme of enthusiastic mutual consent. He has absolutely ZERO interest in D/S kink of any kind.

So even if he wasn't guided by a strong sense of right and wrong, he simply would not get off in any way on the kind of scenario that these revolting men have participated in.

Do I think that my lovely DH is capable of, for example, having an affair? He is the last person I would suspect, but ultimately I cannot say hand in heart that there is no set of circumstances under which he might cheat.

But would he have sex with an unconscious stranger? No. Absolutely not.

Not just men who participated but similar stories popping up in multiple places. I did read Pelicot was already an abusive man though which may change views.

I am often surprised at the number of men who struggle with the concept of consent. I recall an advice column I read a while ago on a national newspaper. The wife was arguing with her husband as she had gone through his phone and discovered a chat where some of the men were sharing intimate photos they had received from partners. The amount of men commenting who thought her breach of privacy was disgusting but had no issue with these women’s photos shared without their consent was disturbing.

No, not at all.

I have known men who would be likely to do that sort of thing, and I have been in abusive relationships with men who have treated me very much like that, and I know for a certain fact that my husband is not one of those men.

That knowledge aside, like a pp I can feel sex the next day, and I've never had that happen when I'm not aware of having had sex, I've never had any symptoms of sleeping pills, never had any gynae problems, and so on - not only do I trust my husband, but there is a total absence of any evidence that it could've happened.

I don’t know how to say that, no, I did not even slightly think twice or suspect that my long term DP could ever be capable of this sort of crime, without sounding like I am “not my Nigel-ing”.

If I ever thought anything like that then I wouldn’t be in a relationship with him.

There are obviously a lot of awful men, but I think cases like this probably make the concentration of them seem high, when actually it's because men with these kind of absolutely grotesque interests will go out of their way to fulfil them. They will travel, they will congregate online, they will find each other and then when something comes to light the numbers seem staggering.

There's still a lot though 🤢

YANBU - I’ve not wondered about my husband but I have wondered about other men I know or have met over the years.

I have listened to Minwalla on various podcasts and it blows my mind that he presents it as some brilliant new discovery that women are traumatised by the secrecy, dishonesty, and gaslighting of their sexually compulsive partner, as much as / more than the sexual acts themselves.

Surely this is common sense? Or something anyone would understand if they bothered actually listening to the partners of cheating or porn-addicted men for five minutes?

I don't think most men I know would do this even if they could. However misogyny, and disrespect for women seems fairly common. Hear the way groups of young men talk amongst themselves about women. A lot of it is bravado of course, and most know not to say such things to women, let alone do what they say. But it's unhealthy and indicative of a contempt for women, which can lead to bad actions by a minority.

What a world we now live in Thou to have to force yourself to think your husband is capable of doing something this bad horrifies me !
I haven't never thought this !
How can I think my hubbi wud do this if u did u wud never have married him it's fucking insane!
You just never know but in my gut there is no way I'd b thinking mine wud do this he has to much respect for woman that I do know we have a grown daughter as well !
And he has shown my son how to respect woman by the way he treats me

I would be surprised if these cases had any women here wondering about their husbands. Surely if you genuinely suspected your husband could do this kind of thing you would not be with him? (Unless you were trapped in an abusive relationship.)

No not at all. Some terrible things are done by men to women but the men concerned are not typical.

but got me wondering are most men actually like this, walking around pretending to be normal but actually have these sick fantasies they’re just waiting for the opportunity to act out?
Don't you think that if most men were like this, that a case like this would have come out of the woods before.

It hasn't because thank god, this is exceptionally rare and I hope there won't be another such horrific one for a long time.

No because the statistics don’t support it
Do people genuinely think like this? Because it makes no sense. I've just been told that my risk of medical heart incident of any sort are under 2%. Do I think it therefore can't possibly happen? Of course, just that's unlikely. I still take all precautions to keep it like that.

No I think I need to give a little trust once in a while.
He listens to my feminist rants though and agrees.

Before I split up with exh I would have said no, he's one of the good guys.

But I was wrong. On reflection he thought it was fine to demand sex stuff and sulk if I didn't t do them, despite it being very clear I didn't dnt really want to. I can't think about it too much but the last bit of our relationship was me hiding from him especially on Fridays that he had mentally chosen as The Day She Puts Out Or I Sulk. Fortunately he cheated on me, but I'm horrified I was so fucking ingrained in the culture that I didn't see what he was doing as wrong, I thought I owed him as his wife.

I wonder what he would have done if I'd taken sleeping pills.

You say fortunately he cheated like that's why you separated . Did u feel.like this was the only way to get out of it ?.
That's awful big hugs 🤗 x

Unfortunately having unpleasant fantasies, which are sometimes acted out is a human nature thing, and I would point out, not restricted to men.

Why would she?
It's obvious that women are safer around other women than they are men.
It is extremely rare for a woman to sexually assault another woman so your snippininess is wholly unwarranted.

Not for a single solitary second. He’s never given me the remotest cause to worry about infidelity, much less anything worse.

It is extremely rare for a woman to sexually assault another woman so your snippininess is wholly unwarranted
Well women are more unlikely to SA a man. It's much harder to do.

Lesbian couples are a small percentage of total relationships, so of course, the numbers of complaints of SA amongst lesbians is going to be very small.

Does this mean that a lesbian doesn't need to consider that it couldn't happen to them?

I think many people don't have a good understanding of statistics.

If someone crosses train track on a very busy route, they would be putting themselves at very high risk of death. If someone crosses a route that is only used by one train a day, the risk of being it by that one is ver low.

Does it mean that one doesn't need to watch if any trains come before crossing it?