If a rapist says it's all right, then it's not rape?

[MsAmerica]

The Trial of Gisèle Pelicot’s Rapists United France and Fractured Her Family
After fifty-one men were convicted, Pelicot became a feminist hero. But additional accusations left her children struggling to accept her new role.
By Rachel Aviv

At the trial, he admitted to all the charges—“I am a rapist, like those in this room,” he said.

Nearly all the other defendants denied committing a crime. “As long as the man is there, giving me instructions, it’s not rape,” a construction supervisor said.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/03/02/the-trial-of-gisele-pelicots-rapists-united-france-and-fractured-her-family

Can't read your link OP because it's behind a pay wall.

Presumably you're aware that much of the better press has a paywall. I provide enough so that you can try a search on your own, or see if you can find the article at a good library.

In this case, I mostly wanted to highlight that remark.

“As long as the man is there, giving me instructions, it’s not rape,” one of the rapists said.

Read that two or three times to let it sink in.

The woman’s lack of consent is irrelevant. She’s just a bit of equipment owned by another man.

This is the patriarchy accidentally saying the bits they don’t want to publicise out loud.

Just because he said it - doesn't mean its right, or anyone would think its right.

I don't think its the patriarchy as such - its just one man's stupid, twisted opinion. The vast majority of men would disagree with him completely.

Many men truly cannot consider women as equal humans: They belong to the fathers, before belonging to the husbands. (That is actually written into laws and made into religious wedding rituals) If the owner tells you to use any of his possessions, it is fine.

The man who said that is Muslim. That may explain his view of a woman as her husband’s possession. It would have been the same in Europe a couple of hundred years ago of course but I don’t think any western man would be so lacking in self awareness as to say that out loud these days.

You think people are going to open your thread then pop off down to a library to search for the original article??

But yes it's appealing that in so called modern society, women are still seen as a man's possession to do with as he can.

I suspect the vast majority of rapists at trial deny rape using a variety of spurious and grotesque rationale. It’s a disgusting thing to have said but I’d pay it little heed. He was found guilty. And I presume like the others, is in prison.

Is the ´man giving instructions’ a true translation? From what I understand the husband was telling some of these men that his wife had consented in advance to this kink of him watching other men with her while she was unconscious. So they pled not guilty based on being assured it wasn’t rape by her husband and not knowingly committing rape.

They were still convicted sending a clear signal that you need consent directly and in the moment from who ever you are about to have sex with.

This isn’t news. In fact, a transgender supporter on here - on this very board - told me that my consent wasn’t important. It was my rapist’s internal cognition that mattered.

A Muslim man’s view of women. Why didn’t you clarify that, OP?

I would also be cautious about whether that translation is accurately conveying the social meaning of what was said.

Here's an archived version of the full article: archive.ph/eWCXO

Marital rape has been a crime in England and Wales for less than 40 years.

Um ... not one man. There were a host of rapist, even just in that one group.

As a matter of fact, when you hear of someone being gang-raped in war, isn't it probably the same mindset of "Oh, well, if that guy is implying it's all right, then it's all okay"?

Excellent, thank you.

Where did you find that?
The speakers are unnamed in the original article.
Here is the section:

”(Because most French trials are not officially transcribed, I have drawn from contemporaneous court reporting, much of it by Marion Dubreuil, Juliette Campion, and a few other young female French journalists who were there almost every day for four months.)

Nearly all the other defendants denied committing a crime. “As long as the man is there, giving me instructions, it’s not rape,” a construction supervisor said. A truck driver proposed that “once a woman is wet, it means she’s not saying no.” A gardener explained that he had penetrated Gisèle “out of politeness, to reciprocate the hospitality of the host.”

The list of the 51 rapists convicted shows a wide diversity of men.

Is it? Where did you find that from?

On the list of the 51, there is only one listed as a supervisor of construction
”17. Adrien Longeron, 34, site manager
Longeron was the first of the co-accused to visit the Pelicot home on 14 March 2014, when he was 23.
He denied rape, claiming he believed he was taking part in a consensual scenario.
“As long as the husband was present, there was no rape,” he told the court.
He is already serving a 14-year prison sentence for rape, violence and harassment of three other women. He was found guilty of aggravated rape and child abuse imagery and sentenced to six years.”

About him
”Adrien Longeron enjoyed a privileged upbringing in a wealthy family and with loving parents and sibling in the hills of Provence in the south of France.”

”Psychiatrist Dr Joelle Palma described Longeron as a ‘classic narcissist’ with a ‘exacerbated and uncontrolled sex drive’.”

List of the 51
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/crime/gisele-pelicot-rapists-dominique-mazan-rape-trial-b2667653.html

I followed those journalists' live transcripts on Twitter at the time (I speak French). I was somewhat obsessed with it, because I was so horrified at the men's behaviour. Of course since then - and partly as a result - I've learned that it's not as uncommon as I had thought. Alas.

It was also because the video evidence didn't concord with their claims that they thought she was awake: several of them explicitly worried that they might waken her, or even that she might be waking up because she moved or groaned. Pelicot also had them warm their hands up before going in to her, again so as not to wake her.

So it didn't make sense that they believed she was pretending sleep.

The Guardian gives a little more detail about the various excuses they gave:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/19/who-are-the-men-convicted-over-rape-and-assault-of-gisele-pelicot-

I found this one in particular jaw-dropping:

Ahmed Tbarik, 54
Tbarik, a plumber and former champion boxer married for more than 30 years with three children, was found guilty of raping Gisèle Pelicot at the couple’s home in June 2019. He was sentenced to eight years in jail.
He had denied rape and told the court: “I’m not a rapist, but if I had wanted to rape I wouldn’t have chosen a 57-year-old woman, I would have chosen a pretty one.”

I agree and thank you for all your posts.
One of the things we pretend is that men of our own social group would never do, otherwise we would never date, live with or marry a man. It is horrifying and commonplace all at the same time.

I don't think that represents some larger, systemic thing.

I think it is one, thick arsehole trying to get away with something.

That's a really good point actually. It's a version of the "not all men" isn't it? We so want to believe that the men in our lives would never do such a thing, but then something like this comes along and we're forced to remember that there are actually quite a lot of men who would if they only thought they could get away with it.

When they got caught, they were searching around for any excuse at all, rather than giving an honest account of what they actually believed.

The excuse that the husband gave permission can be said and/or interpreted in two ways: most of them seemed to be saying that they believed that Gisèle Pelicot was consenting because her husband agreed, and that surely no husband would allow his wife to be raped, therefore she had consented. The other reading of course is that a husband can give consent for his wife. I wouldn't want to second guess what they "really" meant, because as I say I don't really believe any of their excuses.

But I do think that the woman's status in islam as her husband's possession, without a right to refuse sex with him may well have made it easier for some of them to convince themselves that they weren't rapists. The only one who went through with appealing the sentence in the end was Hussamettin Dogan who is Turkish though TBF I don't know how significant that is - I don't think he's one of those who explicitly used the "husband" excuse. But the prosecution's summary referred to that when they said "As long as you refuse to admit (rape), it’s not just a woman, it’s a whole sordid way of operating socially that you endorse."
https://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2025/10/10/viols-de-mazan-le-seul-accuse-qui-avait-fait-appel-n-ira-pas-en-cassation-annonce-son-avocat_6645629_3224.html
(It's in French - that quote is from the very end, if anyone wants to check it)