Pornography and the truth about the Pelicot case

There have been protests in 30 cities across France, people marching in outrage over the case of Dominique Pelicot who drugged his wife Gisèle and raped her and invited more than 70 other men – strangers – to come to his house and rape her too. Pelicot is a monster, a modern-day Bluebeard. But what has shocked France most is how very many normal Frenchmen he was able to find, in and around his Provencal village, who were up for having sex with an unconscious woman.

A firefighter, a painter, several businessmen… every week as the trial continues another set of these ordinary men shamble into the courthouse in Avignon and make their bad excuses. They thought it was consensual, they say, and that Gisèle was in on it; that she was faking sleep. But they had been told not to wear aftershave or to smoke for fear that Gisèle would smell a rat when she came to. The chat room they’d met in was called ‘Without her knowing’. A son insu.

For the marchers, the Pelicot case is clear evidence that most men are still steeped in the vicious misogyny of the past. The placards they carry are very #MeToo: ‘I am Gisèle.’ And: ‘Not all men, but only men.’ In response to the case France’s new justice minister, Didier Migaud, last week solemnly promised to rewrite the legal definition of rape to include the word ‘consent’.

‘Educate your sons,’ say the marchers’ placards. To me it feels like watching hounds suddenly, inexplicably swerve away from the scent and set off in entirely the wrong direction. What happened to Gisèle has zip all to do with a lack of education. Some of the men on trial are graduates; others are in their twenties, and sex education has been compulsory in France for two decades.