“I HAVE been called many things but I rather intend to be forgotten.”
So said Dominique Pelicot as he prepared to be sentenced for encouraging at least 49 strangers to rape and assault his wife.
This Monster of Avignon was banged up for 20 years on Thursday, while the twisted men who defiled his “first love” Gisele Pelicot as she lay unconscious were also sent to prison for a combined 428 years.
Finally there is some kind of justice for a woman whose personal horrors are only matched in incredulity by the humbling way in which she decided to waive her anonymity and face her attackers in court (and watch video after video of the degradation inflicted upon her).
She is now, rightly, considered a feminist icon, a trailblazer for the thousands of women who are used and abused by disgraceful men on a daily basis.
Already some victims are taking her lead and also waiving their right to anonymity to face their attackers.
We will never forget Gisele.
And despite his hopes, we must never forget Pelicot either.
He must be remembered for the despicable creature he is, along with all the other inhuman rapists he enabled.
We must never forget the men.
This case has been the stuff of nightmares. So much of it didn’t make sense.
How could a husband be so barbaric that he would actively seek out strangers to rape and torture — for that is what this was — the woman he professed to love?
And how could he find so many men from his local area to carry out such an inconceivably horrifying act?
Sadly the answer is not that hard to find and it is not exclusive to this alarming story.
Indeed, the Gisele Pelicot case is a warning.
At the heart of this case was the vile objectification of a woman by men, drunk on the increasingly extreme pornography that can be found at the click of a mouse.
For these men, that click of a mouse was on a “dating site” where sick fantasies were not just exchanged but were put into action.
Pelicot gave them an opportunity, sparked by his own perverted mind and his knowledge of powerful sedatives.
He claimed his wife wanted to be molested by men as she slept. That was enough for her attackers.
It did not matter to them that Gisele Pelicot had not personally given consent.
It is of course inconceivable, as Thursday’s guilty verdicts attest, that the men believed Pelicot’s lies.
Their claim they had consent was nothing more than a cynical ruse to get them off the hook once they had been caught.
Thank God the five judges overseeing the trial didn’t buy it.
What they, and Gisele, saw were the faces of men who, despite their own domestic arrangements — some were married, some with daughters — could happily treat a woman as nothing but an object.
Not once did they think of the feelings of the woman they were abusing.
There was no pleasure for Gisele, who described her treatment as that of a “rag doll . . . a garbage bag”.
Since this case erupted, we have heard another scandalous, and I would argue not unadjacent, story from these shores.
British OnlyFans “star” Lily Phillips’ 100-man orgy has fascinated and disgusted the nation.
Of course, unlike Gisele, Lily Phillips invited the men into her bedroom to have sex with her.
She really did give consent, was conscious, and watched over by people she trusted throughout her ordeal.
Nevertheless, I believe there is a disturbing link between the men involved in these two stories.
While none of those who enabled Lily’s “gang bang” are guilty of any crime, they were only in that bedroom because of their warped objectification of women.
Just as the men who invaded Gisele’s bedroom travelled there for theirs.
Both groups participated in a sex act where a woman was used for their gratification and her welfare, to them, mattered not one bit.
I do not believe for one second that any of Lily Phillips’ men cared about her wellbeing as they callously “bedded” her.
I’m sorry but it does not take a paragon of virtue to realise that being part of a 100-strong line of men having sex with a woman, one after another, is probably not in her best interests.
Shame on them.
What will these men, also hooked on an apparently unstoppable conveyor belt of ever-more degrading online filth, do next in their pursuit of perversion? I fear the worst.
Because only when deviant men stop thinking of women as vehicles for their twisted and selfish sexual “needs” will we stop hearing about these disturbing events.
I won’t hold my breath.
NETFLIX bosses are apparently ready to pull the plug on Harry and Meghan’s $100million deal after the Duke’s critically panned Polo series turned out to be a real stinker.
It is said the streaming giant will follow Spotify in jettisoning the couple, who were dumped from their $20million podcast contract and branded “grifters” by a senior Spotify boss.
But the non-royal royals should be thankful they’ve lasted so long at Netflix.
Many haven’t been so lucky.
The US firm is a brutal place to work, and it fires people as often as you and I change our underpants.
I know people who work there – and also who did work there until they were coldly dispatched, tossed out with the day’s trash.
The company’s business culture revolves around something called “radical candour”, a philosophy summed up as “caring personally, while challenging directly”.
In practice this means they don’t put up with any crap and call it out, vocally, to anyone they think deserves it.
Oh, to be a fly on the wall when it’s H&M’s turn to “have a little chat”
IT’S impossible to open your email at this time of year without being spammed to the rafters with Christmas “gift ideas”.
Normally these lists of tat get an instant delete, but one did catch my eye: “Post-poo drops”.
Yep, you read that right.
Poncey toiletries firm Aesop has come up with the pipette-delivered toilet bowl drops to tackle an occasion when “vigorous activity has occurred in the bathroom”.
Vigorous? Yikes!
Perhaps popping a few drops of bran in the breakfast bowl might be a better solution.
I WENT to the world darts this week and was subjected to the kind of security search that would impress a guard at Abu Ghraib.
Along with a vigorous pat-down that reminded me I hadn’t had a good massage in months, my wallet was rifled through – right down to inspecting all my receipts.
I half expected to be asked to pull my drawers down for a cavity search but fortunately I was spared that indignity.
Was this all really necessary, I wondered?
Well, apparently the searches are to stop folk bringing in “contraband” – ie coke and pills – and then getting a bit carried away on live TV with the likes of star Luke Littler in the background.
Fair enough.
But an hour in I realised they could be missing a trick here – as well as some hidden stashes – as two groups of excitable lads went hammer and tongs at each other.
One lot were dressed up as minions, the other as penguins.
If that’s not great TV then I don’t know what is.
GOOD luck to Grace Dent as she replaces disgraced Gregg Wallace alongside John Torode on MasterChef.
Grace knows a thing or two about food, having scoffed for a living as a restaurant critic for donkey’s years.
She is also what pretentious folk call “flexitarian”, due to the fact her diet is “mainly plant-based” but she will eat meat.
She doesn’t call herself that though, because – as she once proclaimed: “Announcing you’re flexitarian is a bit like coming out as bisexual”.
Or, er, just admitting you like eating meat and veg like a normal person.
THE BBC’s tribute to Wham!’s Last Christmas – now No1 in the festive chart – is a touching bit of TV.
Even the sometimes prickly Andrew Ridgeley manages to give off a bit of warmth as he recalls how he and his best pal “Yog” made possibly the best ever Christmas pop song.
Of course the absence of George’s physical presence looms large in Wham!: Last Christmas Unwrapped, but we’re treated to enough reminders of his genius.
Not least his reaction to learning that Last Christmas would likely be pipped to the 1984 Christmas No1 by Band Aid’s Do They Know It’s Christmas? (on which he performed).
Instead of having a tantrum and kicking his agent across the office like most stars would, generous George decided to give all the profits from his single to Band Aid.
A better example of the Christmas spirit you will struggle to find.
