(TW) The Gisèle Pelicot interview

[Itsasecretnow]

I looked for another post but couldn’t find any via AS.
I have just watched the Newsnught interview with Gisèle Pelicot on iPlayer (I believe it went on there today?). Obviously I kept an eye on the case as it was ongoing and have always admired her strength and decision to become public and have an open court hearing. What I wasn’t expecting, though, was to be left by the end of the half hour feeling quite so moved by it! I’m not an ‘emotional” person, normally, and I’m not often moved to this point; I did have actual tears at the end. I think, no matter how much you may follow a case such as this, and have so many feelings about what she went through (and the massive ripple effects on her family), and the obvious anger, hateful and negative thoughts about what these abusers did to her, to actual see her speaking about these things with such dignity and even her positivity around her life and future, you can’t help but be emotionally affected by seeing this. The outpouring support from around the world was always an amazing thing to see, but this interview just transcends everything in terms of emotion and how it hits you.
I guess I’m just posting this because of the effect it had on me and thought maybe a positive discussion about this woman - without giving any heed or time to these men and their despicable crimes (this is the last time I will reference them)- and how she’s going forward in her life, or what it means to all the women who took strength from her…those kind of positive things that seem to just emanate from her as a hugely strong, still positive woman who is still looking forward to her future. It’s a cliche, but yeah, it is inspirational. Any positive stories in the same vein. No looking at, or referencing those who have caused pain, but the strength that women can have in the face of adversity.
(I may not be able to return for a little while, but I really would like this to concentrate on the women).
(I wasn’t sure where best to post this - I looked at all topics - but I think, as it’s specifically inspired by the half hour programme on iPlayer, and I hope it’ll be responde to by those who have watched this specific interview that I’d put it here, at least to begin with, and move elsewhere if needed) thank you all.

I've just watched this and I am absolutely fucking raging. 70 men living within a 30 mile radius of a woman's home raped her while she was drugged and her husband looked on and filmed.

I know "not all men" but it brings home the depravity of a not insignificant percentage. How many more considered it but didn't act?

Shame on them. Shame on those who would even think about it.

@SewingBees you should have seen some of the excuses these men gave in court. Absolutely disgusting.

But only 51 of those 70 have actually been caught, arrested and faced trial 😬

This is unfathomable to me too.

Maybe it is because of guilt? (Not that she should feel any guilt at all.)

In the sense that she can just about believe the fact that it happened to her and has tried to come to terms with it; although of course psychologically that’s an incredibly difficult thing to do.

But having to come to terms with the fact that she was living in the same house as her daughter and yet couldn’t protect her is something too psychologically distressing for her brain to encompass, so she denies it?

Quite soul destroying on top of everything else if their relationship is permanently damaged because of it.

And yes, agree with pps about the utter horror of all of these relatively local men in their twenties to seventies not only thinking it acceptable to sign up to a website called "without her knowledge” but actually going ahead with the abuse when presented with an elderly unconscious woman in an ordinary home? Not that it would be acceptable in any situation!

And ffs they were firefighters, journalists, students, truck drivers, prison guards, nurses, pensioners, town councillors etc. Ordinary fathers, husbands and brothers.

Imagine being alone and in a position of vulnerability with that male nurse or prison guard or firefighter?

I look differently at all men now after reading this case.

FWIW my take on her struggle to believe her daughter’s account is because opening herself up to that would involve accepting that as a mother she had not been able to protect her child from the worst possible thing to happen to a daughter (not that anyone would or is blaming her, but psychologically she may feel that way)

Yes I’ve read a bit more on this and she seems to have a little more insight in to her own behaviour around this and her relationship with her dd now:

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/13/magazine/gisele-pelicot-france-rape-case-story.html

And she says of course that this sort of devastation in a family doesn’t necessarily result in harmony between family members which of course is true. A very sad reality.

Had no idea about DP's childhood: being raped himself and forced to watch a gang rape as a child 😳 Helps explain a lot (but still no excuse for his behaviour).

Thanks for the reminder. I’ll definitely watch this. She’s a very brave lady.

I haven’t seen it yet. I was worried it would be too much, but my DH watched it and was blown away by her. He then went online and ordered her book. This is important. She reaches men too and this is no small thing.

Yes. I found it incredibly moving when she said that she perhaps wouldn’t have had the bravery to speak up in her 20s, 30s, 40s or even 50s, but that as an older woman with the wisdom and strength that brings, she wanted to speak up for herself and for all of the other young victims of sexual
abuse and for the women who turned up at court each day to support her, many of whom were victims themselves.

That is not a life it live is it? To never know for sure. But that is a weird statement from him about the way she was sleeping, it definitely puts up major red flags at the very least. I do hope the mother and daughter get their relationship back, but I can see how this must be really hard for Caroline, I can’t see how that full trust in her mother could ever be the same again. I just can’t imagine it with my own child. It must be like she’s lost both parents in a way, a bomb went off in her life as well as her mother's, she’s a victim too. So much ripple effect from this…

This quote: ‘this isn’t about you, I’m the victim’ does sound absolutely shocking. I wonder when exactly it was said to her, at which point in the whole process? I can imagine that Gisele is going through something so complex, that very few people could understand, it has had to have hit her - psychologically - in a very bad way. Despite all the talk about being strong etc, I don’t know how you could ever get though something like this without it having a profound, lasting effect. Maybe it was due to her state of mind as you say. To compartmentalise this kind of trauma would be a perfectly normal way for the brain to react, and I agree it could have left her unable to be available for her daughter in that way. We all say we’d immediately believe our daughters, but in reality this would unlikely be after we’d gone through something like this ourselves so maybe we just don’t know. Fortunately, it’s not something most people would ever have to go through so I guess we can’t say how our brains would react? Just so much emotional and psychological fallout, and not just for the mother.
To think that these were mostly men from within something like a 20 mile radius (I think I heard/read), that’s such a small area. To have that many depraved monsters all within a geographically tiny area is shocking to me. How does that multiply out? How many men would do/have done something like this? It’s a horrible statistic that can only leave you questioning how many men would do that, given the opportunity?! Yes, namalt, blah blah blah, but the number of men with sick and twisted minds re violence and sexual abuse towards women and girls globally, is a truly sickening number. Especially as something like 90% will never be found out/charged. Absolutely churns my stomach. There have always been me like this - I was a teen in the 80s and there were plenty of vile men then, but now, now they’ve all got a giant global playground to fund their likeminded “chums”…

Although not quite on topic, but Ive just opened up my local news and https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cjenwww03jxo This came up. Yet another example, one that’s repeated around the world many, many times a day. This is a police officer who wasn’t believed by her own force! But, again, these women have waived their right to anonymity to stand up and make this public. To not take any of the shame. I know many more are unable to do that, for obvious reasons, it must be so hard, but the more that do, the more that try and make the world see that this is not theirs to carry. There are few other crimes where not being believed and having the shame shifted on to the victim/survivor happens. But it’s just women, so it’s ok 🤷🏼‍♀️

This !!! 😡
Who and where are the other 19 ?
19 men out there who have done terrible things and got away with it.

I may be wrong, as I’ve not looked it up properly, but I’m sure I read somewhere that I think investigations are/were possibly still going on in the background? I hope so! Tbh I can’t see that the French police can now be seen to not still be looking in to it. I hope so for her sake - and for every single woman who comes after her!
I think it was maybe last week or so there was a very similar news story of something almost identical that is now being investigated against a husband in the uk, who, alledgedly (my arse), has also been doing the same thing to his wife for years with other men. Honest to god, it’s not like most women have had at the least unwanted advances and experiences* (plus a hell of a lot more!) since we were underage girls - and this shit continues to become more and more fucking insidious since the internet connected these weird freaks into “Sick Men Clubs” whereas before that it was much harder to come across sooo many bastarding sadistic and torturous soulmates.
*im not sure if things have improved somewhat since the 70s/80s but believe me the shit that was just “oh that’s how things were” for any of us growing up as girls/teens during those times (myself included). When you know what? No that shit was categorically not normal and none of us asked for that, or protected from certain situations, at least not every single situation, that just really not things that anyone would necessarily see would even be possible or heard of. But as an adult, thinking back to certain things it’s so bloody obvious today and I genuinely don’t know how I feel about it. Because I didn’t necessarily see it as “wrong” in the true sense. Maybe quite not entirely right all the time. Like we all thought we were know it all teens, I certainly did and always had my head screwed on and yeah, flattery, being able to go into the pubs etc was sooo “cool”…and the other aspects to how things were, that didn’t occur to em till much later that what are men in their at least early 20s, upwards really want to hang around with a bunch if still underage girls. You think you’re getting something out of it but thrn it just goes that little bit further… anyway I was relatively luckier than others (which is fucking mad to actually write!). I think. Hope. I wouldn’t have been believed and I now how strong, stubborn and independent enough I was back then to have gone absolute batshit had my parents found out and brought it upmost- to me, or any institutions, and would not have agreed and told them they had no ide what they were talking about, so to almost like they’d never have win if they did know. There’s obviously -like almost all women (at least 60%+ last time I looked.. conservative estimations so likely more) have had plenty other experiences, as an adult woman, in the hands of men, reaching from “not too bad” to the “wtaf” shit. But my point being is majority of women have had negative experiences anywhere within that spectrum, and the countries/cultural issues and (accepted) norms need getting rid of or need to be transparent and so I hope this has awoken a lot of women who will now longer be ashamed to speak out now. But we still have a very very long way to get rid of that culture of blame and shame.

I hope that this happens less these days - the young teen thing I alluded to up there - the change from our growing up in times of “oh, that’s just how it is”, And I hope that t least just isn’t an accepted thought/answer/inbuilt bias etc.