Sensational mass trial shines a dark light on rape culture in France

AVIGNON, France (AP) — They are, on the face of it, the most ordinary of men. Yet they’re all on trial charged with rape. Fathers, grandfathers, husbands, workers and retirees — 50 in all — accused of taking turns on the drugged and inert body of Gisèle Pelicot while her husband recorded the horror for his swelling private video library.

The harrowing and unprecedented trial in France is exposing how pornography, chatrooms and men’s disdain for or hazy understanding of consent is fueling rape culture. The horror isn’t simply that Dominique Pelicot, in his own words, arranged for men to rape his wife, it’s that he also had no difficulty finding dozens of them to take part.

Among the nearly two dozen defendants who testified during the trial's first seven weeks was Ahmed T. — French defendants’ full last names are generally withheld until conviction. The married plumber with three kids and five grandchildren said he wasn’t particularly alarmed that Pelicot wasn't moving when he visited her and her now-ex-husband's house in the small Provence town of Mazan in 2019.

It reminded him of porn he had watched featuring women who “pretend to be asleep and don’t react,” he said.

Like him, many other defendants told the court that they couldn’t have imagined that Dominique Pelicot was drugging his wife, and that they were told she was a willing participant acting out a kinky fantasy. Dominique Pelicot denied this, telling the court his co-defendants knew exactly what the situation was.

Céline Piques, a spokesperson of the feminist group Osez le Féminisme!, or Dare Feminism! said she's convinced that many of the men on trial were inspired or perverted by porn, including videos found on popular websites. Although some sites have started cracking down on search terms such as “unconscious,” hundreds of videos of men having sex with seemingly passed out women can be found online, she said.

Piques was particularly struck by the testimony of a tech expert at the trial who had found the search terms “asleep porn” on Dominique Pelicot's computer.

Last year, French authorities registered 114,000 victims of sexual violence, including more than 25,000 reported rapes. But experts say most rapes go unreported due to a lack of tangible evidence: About 80% of women don’t press charges, and 80% of the ones who do see their case dropped before it is investigated.

In stark contrast, the trial of Dominique Pelicot and his 50 co-defendants has been unique in its scope, nature and openness to the public at the victim’s insistence.

After a store security guard caught Pelicot shooting video up unsuspecting women’s skirts in 2020, police searched his home and found thousands of pornographic photos and videos on his phone, laptop and USB stick. Dominique Pelicot later said he had recorded and stored the sexual encounters of each of his guests, and neatly organized them in separate files.

Among those he had over was Mahdi D., who testified that when he left home on the night of Oct. 5, 2018, he didn’t intend to rape anyone.

“I thought she was asleep,” the 36-year-old transportation worker told the panel of five judges, referring to Gisèle Pelicot, who has attended nearly every day of the trial and has become a hero to many sexual abuse victims for insisting that it be public.

“I grant you that you did not leave with the intention of raping anyone,” the prosecutor told him. “But there in the room, it was you.”

Like a few of the other men accused of raping Pelicot between 2011 and 2020, Mahdi D. acknowledged almost all of the facts presented against him. And he expressed remorse, telling the judges, “She is a victim. We can’t imagine what she went through. She was destroyed.”

But he wouldn’t call it rape, even if admitting that it was might get him a lighter sentence. That led prosecutors to ask the court to screen the graphic videos of Mahdi D.'s visit to the Pelicot home.

In June, authorities took down the chatroom where they say Dominique Pelicot and his co-defendants met. Since the trial started on Sept. 2, it has resonated far beyond the Avignon courtroom's walls, sparking protests in French cities big and small and inspiring a steady flow of opinion pieces and open letters penned by journalists, philosophers and activists.

It has also drawn curious visitors to the city in southeastern France, such as Florence Nack, her husband and 23-year-old daughter, who made the trip from Switzerland to witness the “historical trial.”

Nack, who noted that she, too, was a victim of sexual violence, said she was disturbed by the testimony of 43-year-old trucker Cyprien C., a defendant who spoke that day in court.

Asked by the head judge, Roger Arata, whether he recognized the facts, Cyprien C. answered that he “did not contest the sexual act.”

“And the rape?” Arata pressed. The defendant stood silently before eventually responding, “I can’t answer.”

Arata then began to describe what was on the videos implicating him. They are only shown as a last resource and on a case-by-case basis. But for many in the courtroom, such detailed descriptions can last several minutes and be just as heavy as watching them. Gisèle Pelicot, who is in her early 70s, has chosen to remain in the courtroom while the videos are shown. Unable to watch, she usually closes her eyes, stares at the floor, or buries her face in her hands.

Experts and groups working to combat sexual violence say the defendants’ unwillingness or inability to admit to rape speaks loudly to taboos and stereotypes that persist in French society.

For Magali Lafourcade, a judge and general secretary of the National Consultative Commission of Human Rights who isn’t involved in the trial, popular culture has given people the wrong idea about what rapists look like and how they operate.

“It’s the idea of a hooded man with a knife whom you don’t know and is waiting for you in a place that is not a private place,” she said, noting that this “is miles away from the sociological, criminological reality of rape.”

Two-thirds of rapes take place at private homes, and in a vast majority of cases, victims know their rapists, Lafourcade said.

It can be difficult at times to reconcile the facts with the personalities of the accused — described by loved ones as loving, generous and considerate companions, brothers and fathers.

Cyril B.’s tearful older sister told the court: “It’s my brother, I love him. He’s not a mean person.” His partner described him as “kind, his heart on his sleeve and full of attention.” She insisted that he isn’t “macho” and that he had never forced her to do anything sexually that she wasn’t comfortable with.

Although Lafourcade does not believe “all men are rapists,” as some have concluded the trial shows, she said that unlike the #MeToo accusations that have ensnared French celebrities, the Pelicot case “makes us understand that in fact rapists could be everyone.”

“For once, they’re not monsters — they’re not serial killers on the margin of society. They are men who resemble those we love,” she said. “In this sense, there is something revolutionary.”