I read it all, to the end, if Gisèle Pelicot endured it I can endure reading about it. But I now feel physically ill.
This was a cross-section of men. True, men who used porn and were on chatrooms, but that doesn't narrow down the cross-section very much. They were from different places and different backgrounds. Lots of them were the bloke-next-door father-of-family types. But every one of them is a rapist.
The conclusions to be drawn from that about the danger men pose to women and children are frightening. It could be any man. There is no guarantee, no safety.
I agree wholeheartedly about the 'sob stories'. I understand that each defendant will be trying to offer some kind of excuse or mitigation. The point is that being sexually abused as a child is not an excuse - it does not cause you to choose to repeat the abuse. The majority of CSA victims are girls, they grown up to be women, and women form a tiny minority of abusers; the 'cycle of abuse' is a manifestation of toxic masculinity at work.
In my experience, an adult female survivors of CSA is more like to be fiercely protective of children.
I'm fed up with men using that as an excuse for abusing children. If childhood sexual abuse has happened to you, as it has to me, you know how awful it is and if you have a grain of morality in you, you would die rather than inflict that on a vulnerable child.
The only positive in this sickening case is the unbelievable, powerful courage of Gisèle Pelicot.