Not All Men, but Any Man

So many aspects of the trial of Dominique Pelicot and 50 other defendants in France over the past month have been so extraordinary to experience that they feel somehow surreal, or upside-down. In 2020, Gisèle Pelicot, a 67-year-old retiree living in the small French town of Mazan, was told by police that her husband of almost 50 years, Dominique, had been arrested after trying to film up women’s skirts in a shopping center. At first, Gisèle was cautiously understanding. If Dominique was willing to go into therapy, she thought, they could stay together. But then the police confronted her with something infinitely more shocking. On his hard drive, a folder titled “abuse” contained some 20,000 photographs and videos of Gisèle being raped and assaulted by strange men—72 in total—as well as her husband. For about a decade, they told her, he had been drugging her food and drink, and inviting men he met on the internet to abuse her. In court last month, Dominique Pelicot validated the charges against him. “I. Fourteen of the other men on trial have to the , but the majority claim innocence, arguing that they thought they were simply participating in a “libertine” game between husband and wife.