Gisele Pelicot, utterly floored by this

[twoboystwodogs]

I am totally stunned by what happened to Gisele Pelicot, it is beyond horrific. The violation, the betrayal of trust, and that so many 'normal' men thought what they were doing was OK. I am struggling to find words. I'm not wanting to belittle all the other horrendous cases of violence against women. But to be drugged in your own bed by your husband and your husband allow other men to come in and rape you and he films it and he puts it on the Internet and encourages other men to do this to their wives. For over 10 years. What the actual f###? How much more of this abuse are women going to have to take before something is really done to stop it?

BBC News - Women moved by defiant Gisèle Pelicot in France mass rape trial
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvg5g24rr6lo

Those poor children, in hospital needing surgery so probably already in pain and frightened!

Testimony of a young woman operated on as a child by Joël Le Scouarnec

While the prosecutor of the Republic of La Rochelle revealed that 184 complaints for assaults and rapes of minors had been filed against the surgeon of Jonzac, Joël Le Scouarnec, meeting with Amélie LEVEQUE who remembered to have been assaulted at the age of 9, just before an operation for appendicitis. According to her lawyer, the young girl’s name was found among the 200 cited in the doctor’s notebooks.

Video in French - I'm quite glad that I don't understand French!
https://mediaclip.ina.fr/en/i20336187-testimony-of-a-young-woman-operated-on-as-a-child-by-joel-le-scouarnec.html

I wonder about the different percentages guided by the current circumstances (ETA: I mean specific and situational, not social/state of the world) and any ready reckoning as to whether or not there's a good chance they would never be found out or if it's unlikely there could be any consequences.

I feel so unsettled. My own cognitive dissonance allows me to move through the world and function but this case has left me shaken. It's turned such a stark light on realities that are a huge cognitive and emotional burden.

There was a study that asked men: 'If you knew for certain there would be no consequences, would you...?'

One in six said yes to rape. One in three said yes to something that was clearly rape but didn't use the word (from memory I think the question was something like 'use force to have sex with a woman even if she didn’t want to'.).

1 in 3.

It is alarming. I vaguely remember reading an article a long time ago by a British journalist (forget the name) who was with the Red army as it over ran Germany. He was thinking back about what he witnessed and the 'all men are rapists' and thinking it might actually be true. I think it might be more 'all men are capable of rape' and not just because all men have a penis. I sometimes suspect very few men given the wrong set of circumstances would be incapable of rape. Although, for the majority of men those circumstances would be vanishingly unlikely to come about.

The men who raped Gisele were self selected, they were all using a dodgy website so perhaps not representative of a truly random selection of men. That should give a little comfort, not much but a little.

Why do they have to file their own complaints with their own lawyers? . Why does the justice system not take the evidence they have and bring their own charges. It is clear that the justice system does not protect women, why should it be down to women to bring men to justice?

... the 'all men are rapists' and thinking it might actually be true. I think it might be more 'all men are capable of rape'

The original saying was, and should still be:

All men are potential rapists

It was intended to make men think (you'll be lucky) that because of the "potential" they should be very aware that it was about them taking a decision.

What the protestors don’t seem to grasp is that it’s precisely because these men understood the importance of consent that it carried such erotic appeal to proceed without it. The lack of consent is the point. And it’s not patriarchy that’s to blame, but porn-ography. It’s porn which leads a human down into the sludgy gutters of his own psyche – and if the feminists of France really wanted to stand with Gisèle, they’d educate their sons to abstain. Not just from the obviously illegal stuff, but from all of it.

‘Most male sexuality is designed by evolution to be an unscratchable itch; a desperate, unsatisfiable urge. It is like hunger: just as you aren’t meant to wake up one day and say, “Oh, I’ve had 6,000 meals, I think I’ll stop eating now”, so men aren’t meant to wake up one day and think, “Oh, I’ve ogled 500 girls, I think I’ll stop staring at them now.” A further problem with this is that when a man starts to explore his more deviant sexual fantasies, he can find himself in an addictive spiral, pursuing ever stranger forms of sex.’

As the police were rounding up Gisèle Pelicot’s abusers last year, a report was published in France which revealed that as much as 90 per cent of online porn featured violence towards women. ‘Women… are humiliated, objectified, dehumanised, assaulted, tortured, subjected to treatment that is contrary to both human dignity and French law… the women are real and the sexual acts are real and the violence is real. The suffering is often perfectly visible and at the same time eroticised.’ And it was also reported that more than half of 12-year-old boys in France view porn every month. So, yes, educate your sons.

Some paragraphs from a longer article at https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/pornography-and-the-truth-about-the-pelicot-case/

Also at Pornography and the truth about the Pelicot case | The Spectator (archive.ph)

Excellent article @IwantToRetire thank you for posting it.
It’s funny, we look at past eras and think we are oh so civilised, when actually half the population is fantasising regularly about performing violent sexual acts (or just violence) on the other half. Where will it end? And they wonder why we don’t want men in our spaces…

Feel a bit let down as have now googled the author thinking what else has she written, and well ... all a bit daily mail.

Is there no on who is vaguely or even mildly left able to acknowledge the problems for women of living in a male dominated society.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce81qj2j3vlo?embed=true

The screening of video evidence was strongly opposed by lawyers for some of the 50 co-defendants who are accused of raping Mr Pelicot's ex-wife.
"Justice does not need that in order to proceed, what is the point of these revolting screenings?" said lawyer Olivier Lantelme.

They don’t want the world to see how despicable they are…

I've totally given up on the left now. I used to be a paid up card carrying member of the NZ Green Party, no longer.

From shallow 1990's "choice" feminism, to increasingly academic feminism focussed in "micro aggressions" and "intersectionality" of the 2000s and onwards, 3rd and 4th wave feminism has lost it IMO.

The mantra "sex work is work", "my body my choice", and a desire to remove kink shaming, it has taken them to a place where they simply cannot acknowledge the harm porn does to all of us, men and women, but the worst harm is to women and girls. Because to acknowledge that harm would be to criticise (in their minds) women and girls who are in the sex industry in porn and as prostitutes. Even the word prostitute is now bad, apparently.

I'm going back to old school 1970s 2nd wave feminisim. They understood there was a difference between men and women, that the difference meant women were more vulnerable to male violence but the difference did not mean women < men.

I do think 4th wave feminism needs to get its head out of its bloody arse and acknowledge the rampant violence to women and girls in online porn is bloody dangerous for ALL of us.

Looks like it was Gisele's decision to have the videos public, that is absolutely amazing to me, what a brave woman! I can see her reasoning, but my god, she's brave for being ready to weather the downside of that too. I don't think I could have done that. I don't think many women could.

Very disappointing, but unsurprising, that the male judge and male defendants didn't want the videos shown and the male judge tried to stop it against Gisele's wishes. I'm so glad for her that she prevails.

What a bloody spectacularly amazing strong woman! She deserves a bloody medal.

I imagine that she might feel that nothing worse can be done to her now. And if the world sees her unconscious, no one can pretend it was a ‘sex scene’ (isn’t that what the bloody judge told her to call it?)

Fwiw, in France, since 1956, more or less all rape are done behind close doors.
This was a fight from a feminist then to protect the victims and their dignity.

There was a lot of discussion around that in the legal community because of that.

I do think that, at the time, it was a really good idea because of the prevalent ideas then.
See comments from the judge now saying images were awful so why show them etc…. Immediately assuming this would reflect badly on her somehow, but not on the men.

Now, it just stops people from really realising how awful things were and what has actually happened, the whole horror of it.
Plus the defence was worried of the impact - what when the whole population is now completely horrified by the images but some of those men go away scoff free? Would that influence the judges?

Fwiw atm these men have had no social repercussions for the rape.
Theyve kept their job.
Some if them did interviews and got hired
Most if them are still married. And those who separated, their ex partners want to get back with them - many if them saying ‘their DP has never raped anyone blablabla’.
They’re not shunt put socially.

It will be interesting to see what the reaction will be when these images will be shown….. I think it will say A LOT about the French society and its attitude to rape (and maybe just society in general, not just the French)

educate your sons

This is what every mother must do. From a young age.

and keep them away from online porn!

I had numerous difficult conversations with my son in his early teens, as well as putting blocks on our wifi. I knew I couldn't keep him from accessing porn everywhere though, so I tried to educate. The main angle I took was no one can be confident the people they view are trafficked, abused or paid actors. So viewing that stuff means inevitably you are party to abuse and trafficking at some stage.

I also told him it's addictive and for his health he needs to ensure his sexuality develops without porn.

That worked. He still saw it, but he didn't become addicted. At least, if he's being honest with me, and that's all I can hope for.

I have a friend who allowed computers only in the living area of the family home and no devices in the privacy of bedrooms. That worked for her kids in the home. I think this is bloody brilliant and if I could go back and do that for my son I would.

I like that the default is for rape cases to be private. I think this is what the majority of victims probably want. It should be up to them, as it has been for Gisele, to make it open and public if they so choose.

The victims always need to have that option of making it public though, that must be retained.

Tying in with what so many of us have said about 'unknowing' victims. This is about a complainant who was 12 years-old at the time and her struggle with it for the next 12 years. It also ties into, 'why do they film this?'.

So she made a promise to herself. “I’m not going to tell my parents,” she decided. “Whatever happens, I’m not going to tell them.”
What Franky didn’t know was that her parents already knew.
In 2014, Franky’s parents received a call from a detective constable. She asked if she could meet them at their house, and arrived soon afterwards. She told them that Greg had been arrested. A year earlier, three girls in a changing room had spotted him holding a small camera under the cubicle walls. Thames Valley police raided his home and seized his computers and laptops, which contained 13,000 indecent images of children. Some of the footage was of Franky. He had filmed her at his home: in the shower, using the toilet, and while he touched her vagina and lifted up her top, revealing her breasts.
Franky’s parents’ memory of that first meeting and what came after is blurry. Recently, they’ve begun trying to pin down exactly what happened and when. But one thing stands out in their minds. They remember the detective telling them that it looked as if Franky was asleep in some of the videos, and advised them that they shouldn’t discuss what had happened with her.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/oct/05/woman-an-unknowing-victim-of-assault-at-12-speaks-out

I’m always 😳😳🤬🤬 at how the sentences are.
No prison for raping or being a paedophile.
Nothing

It’s not justice for the victims.
But future potential victims aren’t protected either. Not even for a few months.

And then they wonder why women don’t come and report rape 😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫

I was abused at the age of six by a hotel porter. Nothing was ever said afterwards and I forgot about it for a long time but was aware that a certain shape of men's fingernails was, still is, utterly repellent. As the years passed I had a feeling that something had happened to me in early childhood, but it wasn't until my mother died a couple of years ago and my brother read her diaries that it was confirmed and I realised the hazy glimpses of memory were real. I'd spent decades wondering what might have happened, or if I was imagining things, and I wish someone had told me before so I could have stopped worrying about it.

I'm glad Gisele has prevailed in having the videos shown.

The judge's reason for hiding them - that they are 'shocking and indecent' - is entirely the point. I'm sure they are horrific, and of course the defendants don't want anyone seeing what they did. That's why - with Gisele's consent - their actions should be revealed in full.

Interesting about the proportion who walked away. Reminds me of research decades ago that studied the limits of obedience. It's considered unethical now because it used deception. People were told they should deliver shocks to someone they couldn't see in another cubicle but who they could hear. I forget what the supposed reason was for the shocks. Something worthwhile and scientific. The real purpose was to see how long people would keep delivering increasing electroshocks to a screaming person purely on the experimenter's calm instructions to continue.

If I remember right, it was only five percent or so who refused once the shocks were bad enough to cause serious pain. Maybe ten percent.

These guys fit right in. 5 out of eighty is 6%.

My guess is they don't hate women. Women don't exist for them. Gisele was just a blowup doll who wasn't on the map in any way. Having walked in, they didn't want to look stupid to the other guy(s) there. Sort of like the people in the experiment who didn't want to look bad to the experimenter.

Most male sexuality is designed by evolution to be an unscratchable itch
[Sean Thomas quoted in the Spectator article Pornography and the truth about the Pelicot case.]

That's the old 'men can't help acting on instinct' line, isn't it? Poor chaps can't be expected not to resist their evolutionary urges, can they? And some say they are naturally violent as well because of testosterone.

Scary. Perhaps all male babies should be bound over to keep the peace..

@quixote9 wasn't that the Milgrim experiment? I've been thinking about how this relates to that. One of the men's testimony almost sounded like Gisèle's husband made him do it. Iirc this was the guy who stripped off and went into the room wearing nothing but a condom. It's pretty thin gruel as an excuse, right down there with 'only following orders'. The men had created their own bubble and some, if they're to be believed, just needed a little push to enable them to do what they wanted to do anyway.