The crime at the center of the Mazan rape case is almost too big to fathom: Over the course of nearly a decade, a man drugged his wife and invited at least 70 strangers to rape her in her own bed. The woman, 72-year-old Gisèle Pelicot, found out about the operation when police showed her the more than 20,000 videos and images saved to her now-ex-husband Dominique’s devices. Again and again, the same scene replayed: A rotating cast of men performed sex acts on her inert body as she lay sprawled and unconscious on her bed, incapacitated by the super-dose of lorazepam that Dominique mixed into her evening ice cream. As side effects from the drugs set in, Gisèle became convinced she was developing Alzheimer’s or a brain tumor — and Dominique took care of her. He drove her to neurological specialists, accompanied her to the gynecologist, stood by for an MRI. He was the love of her life, she said, her “perfect husband,” someone she “trusted entirely.” She never imagined him capable of such “immeasurable” betrayal until she saw it for herself.
When the case went to trial in Avignon this fall, Gisèle waived her right to privacy, airing three months of grueling testimony for the public to parse. Yet even after all those hours of questioning, it’s no easier to understand how this happened. In his final statements to the court, Dominique said he wanted to “subdue an unruly woman … without making her suffer.” He now faces up to 20 years in prison, having admitted to the scheme in its entirety. As for his co-defendants, their fate is less clear; judges are expected to deliver verdicts in the case on Thursday.
These are men ages 26 to 74 who come from all different professions, men, in many cases, with children and partners and even grandchildren of their own: “Monsieur Tout le Monde,” or Mr. Everyman, as French media reports have christened the defendants en masse. Psychological experts who evaluated the accused found, per local outlet BFMTV, “no personality disorders,” “no particular deficiencies,” “no psychological pathologies” that might explain their participation, save maybe a lack of empathy. A handful of the men have prior convictions for domestic violence and sexual abuse, while several face charges for possession of child pornography. But overall, they have been described in court as good fathers, good husbands, loving and gentle — ordinary men except for the extraordinary behaviors captured on-camera.
Because Gisèle demanded Dominique’s videos be screened during the trial, the courtroom has watched these Everymen shove their penises into her mouth, held open by Dominique; roll her inanimate body on its side to penetrate her from behind; assault her anally while she remained limp and lifeless. Yet confronted with the reality of their actions, very few have admitted that — whether purposefully or not — they committed rape. The majority have flinched away, deflected, denied, groped for all manner of justifications as Gisèle sat silently by.
“I’m not a rapist, but if I had wanted to rape, I wouldn’t have chosen a 57-year-old woman. I would have chosen a pretty one,” said Ahmed T., a plumber who claimed to have assumed Gisèle was merely shy. “I don’t ask myself any questions, like a zombie on autopilot,” said Romain V., an HIV-positive former truck driver. He insisted that, during all six of his visits, he believed Gisèle was just “half-awake, tired,” though the videos showed her snoring as he performed oral sex on her.
French law does not consider consent in its legal definition of rape, acknowledging only penetrative sex acts committed “by violence, coercion, threat, or surprise.” The omission leaves open a loophole that defendants have readily exploited, claiming they thought Gisèle a willing participant in a sex game. “I couldn’t have guessed that it was without her knowledge, since her husband is supposed to protect her,” as Mohamed R., a man previously convicted for the rape of his young daughter, argued in his testimony. Another defendant, Husamettin D., pleaded that it wasn’t him who’d done anything wrong but Dominique: “I never thought that guy could do that to his own wife.” In his video, Christian L. popped a thumbs-up at the camera after collapsing over Gisèle’s comatose form, fumbling in his testimony that “my body raped her, but my brain didn’t.” Most of the defendants fell back on the same idea: It’s the man’s intent that matters, not the woman’s consent.
Of course, the clues that something was wrong were everywhere, starting with the name of the chat room where these men met Dominique: “Without Her Knowledge.” Then there were the ground rules he set for entry into the Pelicots’ home. The accused could not show up smelling like cologne or cigarette smoke because foreign scents might provoke Gisèle’s suspicion later on. They had to wait until she’d fallen unconscious to sneak into the house, and once they did, they had to speak in low voices to avoid waking her. Hands had to be warmed on the radiator before entering the bedroom, clothes removed in the kitchen. Several men said Dominique rushed them out at Gisèle’s slightest sign of waking.
Still, apparently none of the defendants bothered to wonder why so much secrecy would be necessary if Gisèle were in on the plan. While several admitted to finding the situation suspicious — one went so far as to compare the encounter to “making love to a corpse” — only two walked away, and not a single one went to the police. Seventy-four-year-old Jacques C. said that as he left the Pelicots’ house, he considered going to law enforcement, having noticed that Gisèle showed “no reaction” when he “caressed” her. But the next day, “life resumed its course,” and that was that. Patrice N. said he never reported Dominique because “I didn’t want to waste my time at the police station, and, anyway, who would believe me?”
Belief is the sticking point in most rape cases. Typically, the only witnesses are the two parties involved, and even when the victim does have evidence — a rape kit performed at a hospital, for example — it still comes down to one person’s word against the other’s. That wasn’t the case in Mazan, where prosecutors had not only Dominique’s confession but also his staggering digital footprint to prove their claims. Without those archives, it’s possible Dominique would have continued abusing Gisèle “until she was killed,” as her attorney put it at trial. But however irrefutable the evidence, it could not spur most of the men to real introspection. Of the 51 defendants on trial, not one of them attempted to check with Gisèle, even as they touched her unresponsive body. It never occurred to them to do so.
Since she discovered her ex-husband’s scheme, the question that has haunted Gisèle is Why? Why would Dominique do this to her, and why did so many people help him? For 48 days, she showed up and witnessed what she called a “trial of cowardice.” She allowed the worst moments of her life to be dissected again in public, hoping to create meaning from the incomprehensible. Her resolve has earned her broad support, from the women who gather outside the courthouse each day and from observers the world over, rallying against the abject horror of the case. But for all that, the trial has not answered Gisèle’s questions; in a year marked by a men’s rights resurgence, it’s only raised new ones.
I think about how exuberantly the incel catchphrase “your body, my choice” bounced around social media in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s re-election, as young men celebrated the triumph of a trad agenda. At a moment when the gains of gender equality once again feel transient, the Pelicot trial makes me wonder how many men would prefer not to consider a woman’s humanity at all. Dominique’s plot was relatively easy to pull off: Looking just within a half-hour drive of his home, Dominique was able to find dozens of strangers ready and willing to come assault his wife. Several of these strangers, with full knowledge of the circumstances, came back once, twice, as many as six times. And even with all of Dominique’s tape, showing us exactly who did exactly what, the majority still had the gall to say they weren’t responsible, revealing a fundamental belief that their feelings about a sexual encounter should define what it was — never mind what the woman wanted. In the end, that’s the common thread: The accused did not think about the woman splayed on the bed. For that, they have only themselves to blame.
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