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

It's this that I find gut wrenching.

80 men out of 2000 thought it was OK to rape an unconscious woman.

80 men thought that was perfectly acceptable. Plus the husband who got sexual pleasure from it. Sick fuck.

80 men who did it but how many didn't know about it and would have done it had they been 'invited' to do it?! A whole lot more I'm sure.

And then the men who believe its a private affair between a married couple, men who believe the press and media are making more of it than they should.

dont get me started on that solicitor.

These men who think women are totally worthless. These men are sons of women, husbands to women, dad's to women, uncles to neices.....I feel sick to the stomach.

These are the men who looked for and found the chat that drew them in. There's probably other men who would have been up for it if it had occurred to them to look.

I always think it's Death and the Maiden but it could be anything. Somebody remarks that it only took 3 years for friends and neighbours to reveal themselves as willing torturers. Somebody else expresses surprise that it took as long as 3 years because these men do walk and live among us and are just waiting for a turn in circumstance to allow them to act.

iirc, this was about the events in South and Central America and pre-dated the horrors of Rwandan genocide and associated rapes foreshadowing other such atrocities where this seemed to have happened overnight.

it is so upsetting and I have also thought the same. 100% of the men would not have known about it. How much higher could the percentage have been.
The quotes from the Mayor and other men from the town are mind blowing.

This reminds me of that Amish (or perhaps it was Mennonite) community in South America (Argentina?) where the men and boys blew in tranquilizers at night to drug victims which included young girls. There was a similar "we should keep this within the community" attitude.

Women Talking was the film of the book based on the events in Bolivia (Mennonites).

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_Talking_(film)

I'm not sure why people are so shocked by this when there is so much evidence that most men will rape when they think they will get away with it. We know this from countless wars, from countries with no legal protection for rape victims, from anonymous surveys of male college students.

Sure, NAMALT. But it's not some small minority of deviants. It's most of them.

I hope it's ok to ask this but how did this go on for so long? Didn't she wake up groggy from the medication? Wasn't she injured or at the very least very sore and bruised?
If she woke up in the morning over and over feeling confused, not remembering falling asleep and with a feeling that something had happened down there that she didn't consent to would she not get suspicious?
I don't get it?

There seems to have been a failure to diagnose 4 STIs as well as a misdiagnosis of early onset dementia that accounted for the memory lapses, balance issues etc.

The husband was praised by standing by his wife despite the dementia and taking good care of her…

ETA: to be clear, she doesn't have dementia. Her husband accompanied her to the GP.

I think she can be forgiven for not suspecting anything because it's fucking insane. Whose mind would go there? Who would think that something like this would happen? Who would think that your beloved, trusted husband of decades would pimp you out like that? And of course he was always there with a little loving gaslighting to ensure she never suspected anything.

There are probably other men doing this too. Or they'll have heard about this case and it'll give them ideas. It's not too far removed from spiking.

There have been cases of burglars anaesthetising homeowners with gas to rob their houses. I'm thinking these people are lucky it's only their belongings that were taken.

And, sorry, but the headline 'Women moved by...'. Where is the men's condemnation? Where is the men's outrage?

Over and over we see this bloody bollocks of men being outraged by rape. 'Oh they'll get what's coming to them in prison!'.Yeah right. We'll let lovely prisoners sort it out like a) that's the way a decent society should conduct itself and b) really we believe that those men have women's rights at the forefront?!

Utter fucking bullshit. Men couldn't give a shit.

Oh and how many of these men would think it ok if they were drugged and raped?

Shows exactly what these men think of women.

It's horrific. Its really affected me. I feel terrified for my daughter.

She was constantly ill, back and forward to her doctor and thought she was developing dementia and losing her mind.

And lastly. Why is it that the vast majority of people working with young men with sexually harmful behaviour are women?

I don't know the stats, but from my own experience it's overwhelmingly women. Men don't want to as they find the idea distasteful. The excuses I've heard could fill a book. Men don't even want to be part of the solution.

@twoboystwodogs and one of the blokes who joined in is saying he can’t be held responsible as he didn’t know she hadn’t consented because he couldn’t see she was asleep as she was face down. Disgusting pig, of course he knew. What a pathetic excuse.

i was disappointed, to say the least, when reading a discussion of this over on GN.
quite a few posters there seemed to be stuck, not to say obsessed, with wondering how GP could not have known what had happened, and speculating in distasteful detail.
so much for the sisterhood, eh ?

I said this on another thread, but things like this ultimately benefit every single man.
All the women in the break room at work were talking about how 'yes my DH doesn't cook or clean etc but at least he's never abused me, i feel safe at home'. The bar is do low! I can guarantee not a single man, for a single second thinks like something like this will happen to them.

One man abusing us is too many.

Questions are being asked about health service providers and others.
https://www.channel4.com/news/activists-in-france-call-for-reform-of-rape-definition-in-french-law

And what is horrific is it is only because the police invetigated the husband for some other offence and seized his computer that this abuse was even uncovered.

What I have found troubling was this was uncovered some time ago, 2 or 3 years(?).

Why has it taken so long to get to court.

The strength of Gisele Pelicot is astonishing, and then his daughter to find out she too had been targetted. At least the children seem to be standing by her.

I am not reading everything about this case as it is so disturbing, but it took the police some time to identify the men in the videos. They still haven’t found all of them. 😔

It’s like something from the 1950s or earlier when women were just considered objects/a husband’s property.

It slightly reminds me of a case in the UK, maybe in the 1970s, known as Morgan vs Morgan, where the husband told other men that his wife liked it rough, so to pay no attention when she fought and screamed.

They duly did pay no attention to her protests.

It slightly reminds me too of the case of the gang rape at the Hotel BH Mallorca on the poor woman. They apparently went down the corridor asking other men if they wanted free sex and again even the ones who refused didn't report it.
Horrific.

French law is different, but I think this case will change it.

It (as it used to be in the UK) isn't a case not knowing what is happening but that she didn't say 'no' or verbally not consent.

It only became illegal to rape your wife in England in the 1990s.