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#rape
support · 5 years
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Everything ok?
If you or someone you know is a victim of abuse, please contact:
The National Domestic Violence Hotline or 1-800-799-SAFE (7233)
Rape Abuse & Incest National Network or 1-800-656-HOPE (4673)
Trained advocates are available 24/7 to take your call.
For international resources, please try IASP.
For more resources, please visit our Counseling & Prevention Resources page for a list of services that may be able to help.
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aahanna · 12 hours
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lasseling · 2 days
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Wall Street Journal Reporter Makes Bone-Chilling Discovery in Springfield, Ohio
Wall Street Journal reporter Asra Nomani has published a shocking report that could soon change the national discussion from Haitians and other migrants eating cats or dogs in Springfield, Ohio, to one that is more sinister: The hub of a complex “hidden human trafficking network” in the tiny rust belt town.
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catboygretzky · 3 hours
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Do I even want to know what happened in the last 24 hours 😭 I'm almost afraid to ask but I'm also insanely curious
You probably don't want to know but I'll tell you because you have no choice. This will be long and...awful. But there are sources so that's fun! Please keep in mind that this was all released within 24 hours on Thursday, September 20th, 2024 and that, unfortunately, I haven't mentioned everything.
But! The GOP was certainly having a wild one yesterday.
To start things off:
The first 'Big News' to break was about Mark Robinson.
For those saying 'who the fuck is Mark Robinson', he's the current (R) Lt. Gov of North Carolina that is running for Gov. Before yesterday, he was best known for openly hating LGBT+ and Jewish folks, being a Holocaust denier, being (forcefully) anti abortion, saying it was better when women couldn't vote, anti immigrant, hating the civil rights movement, etc, just being a hateful Evangelical nasty fascist. MAGA to his core. Trump has endorsed him, saying he should be cherished and calling him "MLK on steroids". (Robinson is Black).
So, yeah, that's bad enough right? Yesterday it got even worse. CNN released a report about some comments he made on a porn site forum 12 years ago, the most prominent being 'i'm a black NAZI'. He also commented that he wished slavery was legal and that he'd own a few, and called himself a 'perv' that used to 'peep' on women in public locker rooms when he was a teenager.
Also the tale as old as time that I'm sure you could guess when I mentioned 'GOP' 'loudly transphobic' and 'porn site scandal' - trans porn was a favourite of his. Because of course.
Also of course - the GOP hasn't taken him off the ticket, and he will continue to be the nominee for governor in North Carolina!
Read the article, there's more about him and the situation in general. Mind the warnings.
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Now on to our favourite worm brained bear eating anti vaxxer conspiracy theorist, Robert F. Kennedy Junior! I'm putting this under a read more now.
The first thing to drop about him yesterday was the news of an investigation after he allegedly cut off the head of a dead whale and took it home 20 years ago. Now I bet you're thinking, wow that's bad! Unfortunately for RFK Jr yesterday got worse. It was then revealed that he (70) was having an affair with right wing journalist Olivia Nuzzi (31) after New York Magazine suspended her.
Everything I learn about RFK Jr I learn against my own will.
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Saying goodbye to RFK for now, let's move on to Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida! This Matt Gaetz, with the botox if you didn't recognise him.
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Scary lookin, right?
This isn't a completely new story (here's an article about how he alledgedly paid for sex with a minor) but new court filings were released yesterday alledging that he attended a drug-fueled sex party in 2017 with the 17-year-old girl at the center of the alleged sex trafficking scandal.
Sure is great to have such trustworthy men representing this country!
OKAY, on to the next.
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This wasn't really breaking news because this is just Trump being Trump but he gave a speech at an ANTI ANTISEMITISM EVENT where he preemptively blamed the Jews for being the reason he'll lose this election, telling them they need to get their head checked if they vote for Harris (that's pretty much part of his stump speech by now though) and saying he'll reinstate his Muslim ban. White fascist blaming Jews? Wow, I did Nazi that coming.
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I genuinely could go on, I really truly could.
Oh! Kamala Harris went on Oprah and it was really nice and not at all insane and she talked to the family of the first known victim of Trump's abortion ban and it was very touching. Trump's official social media then posted a clip of her talking about her gun and saying 'If somebody breaks into my house, they're getting shot' like it was a snatch when in reality Republicans in the comments are saying 'actually, this would make me vote for her'. Thanks, Trump Team for the free advertising!
Misc:
Chris Rufo (known racist and anti immigration right wing activist) got revealed to have an illegal immigrant wife, and then got revealed to be a user of Ashley Madison (database where people go to cheat on their partners)(Robinson was also on Ashley Madison).
Jasmine Crockett during her thing and ripping white republicans to shreds. (idk this was just fun to me)
Actually Republicans and Project 2025 got ripped to shreds and shut down in general by multiple Congress members.
GOP is on the brink of causing a government shutdown, because of COURSE they are.
Cards Against Humanity sues SpaceX over “invasion” of land on US/Mexico border.
Anyway there's actually MORE believe it or not but I can't remember if it happened yesterday. Thank you for reading, I'm always open to discussing current events. I don't think it's a well known fact that I'm into politics because I don't talk about it on tumblr because people are kinda stupid. Anyway!
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furryprovocateur · 4 months
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im going to be real @staff @support @humans if you guys cannot meaningfully punish anonymous asks and/or prevent them from happening again including but not limited to specific rape threats, then anonymous asks should not be a feature on the site. the answer to "i am receiving rape threats" should not be "well have you tried opting out?". it is 2024. formspring and curiouscat were able to monitor this shit better. i get it's a skeleton crew here but you have to realize how utterly ghoulish it is to say the shit you tell trans women on this site.
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hadesoftheladies · 3 months
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“men need to be taught about consent—” babe they know. it’s literally part of the appeal that they violate you against your will. that’s literally the part that turns them on.
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newlyy · 1 year
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I saw a tiktok yesterday from a very well spoken woman on what happens to women when society breaks down. She talked about the only thing stopping men in a civilized society from doing what they want to women at large is the small, small chance that there will be repercussions and that without that threat, they rape and brutalize freely. She talked about how, in her experience as a humanitarian aid worker, she and her peers were told that if they were taken, the men would be killed and the women would wish they had been. In the comments women talked about apocalyptic movies that touched on this, with the line “we promised them women,” from 28 days later. And another where a woman was paid as a toll to allow a group to carry on. Another real life scenario where a woman was passed around a large group of soldiers. Women in the comments say that they’d prefer to die first in a disaster scenario, but worry that their bodies wouldn’t be safe either. I think of that “joke” post from a guy implying that if he were in the titanic submersible and knew everyone was going to die, he would rape whatever women were near him. I think about how I would protect myself if I found myself in that situation, or how I would protect my mother, and I couldn’t because there are so many evil men. It’s had me fucked up since I saw it and also had me reflecting on how insane it is that men are so evil to women and women can’t even acknowledge it, can’t say that they don’t like men, can’t set the very reasonable boundary of saying I don’t want to be around men. Men scare me, men are dangerous.
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sataniccapitalist · 6 months
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I really don't think it's true that abusers always know they're abusive or that if you're worried you're being abusive, that automatically means you're not.
There are patterns of harm we can fall into without really realizing what's going on. We live in an abuse culture that justifies and even celebrates certain kinds of abuse and makes them seem normal.
Maybe when you're trying to protect yourself from harm you set your boundaries so far out from your own autonomy zone that you're infringing on someone else's. Maybe you think you're being fair because you aren't thinking about what it's like for the other person, you're too focused on staying/getting in your own comfort zone.
Maybe you're so used to dysfunctional interactions that every conversation is a power struggle, and you don't even realize that when you're "winning" all the time you're grinding someone else down—you're too busy being relieved that you're not "losing" all the time anymore like you did in the past with someone else.
Maybe you think you're being "funny" and it's "banter" to constantly tear down someone in your life. Maybe you assume they're having fun with it too and that this is how you act friendly towards someone.
Maybe you believe lies about what rape is or what abuse is. Maybe you grew up being told men always want sex and you don't even realize when you're pressuring him into it that he genuinely doesn't want it and it's not a game. Maybe you believed the lies that women say no to seem modest but if she "gives in" that's how you know for sure she wants it. Maybe you thought physical arousal was the same as consent.
Maybe you thought being mean when you're in a bad mood wasn't abuse as long as you don't hit. Maybe you grew up in an environment where any conflict meant you had to hurt the other person as much as possible emotionally in order to "win".
Maybe you're a parent who learned that spanking or scaring your kids is how you keep them in line, which seems necessary to protect them. Maybe you don't realize how cutting some of the things you say are, or how thoughtless or unkind you're being. Maybe you never learned gentleness before you had kids, or don't understand what's age appropriate.
When you're an abuser or a rapist who didn't realize at the time how much harm you were doing, it can cause serious cognitive dissonance to realize the impact of your actions. It's easy to get defensive and decide that since you don't think of yourself that way, there's no way you could possibly be an abuser or a rapist.
It's easy to say that if you don't want to be an abuser, you're not. But it's not always true.
It is absolutely vital that everyone learns how to interact in safe and respectful ways. We're all responsible for figuring out how to not harm other people.
Believing that it's impossible you're harming other people can make you MORE likely to harm them, because you're not checking yourself to make sure that you're not.
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charliemwrites · 7 months
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Government Asset Soap! This is half of the last part (the smut got too long and I wanted to post this dammit).
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Original concept comes from @ceilidho’s military asset Soap. Further inspiration came from @391780’s Nikto version “The Summons”. Both are very good and you should definitely check out!!
Content: Post-trauma coping, Non-Con Touching and Kissing, Violence (mentioned), Unstable Soap
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It’s probably a fire hazard, the candles. They’re sprinkled across your little cabin like fireflies, feeble but steady heartbeats of a home you’re failing to build. Too many of them, likely. Two, sometimes three, per room. Tiny tealights, smokeless soy, scented pine. It would be easier, safer, to just turn on the lamps you foolishly invested in.
You can’t bear anything brighter than golden halogen anymore, though. The glare drags you back to a tiny cell bisected by cruel metal, holding back an even crueler fate. No, you’d much rather wade through pools of shadow and firelight, fire code be damned.
It’s a small cabin, but you’ve already cluttered it up with furniture and rugs, a theme for each room. Yellow and blue for the kitchen. Purple and cream for the den. Green and brown for your bedroom. Nooks to hide in, spaces to squeeze into, big shapes to huddle behind. You’ll never be caught out in a cold, barren room ever again.
Your days are long regardless of the time of year. Get groceries in town every day, making a point to be friendly and seen so that someone might notice if you suddenly stop coming. Clean incessantly, so many surfaces to dust. Pick hobbies like daisies. Knitting and crocheting, different paint styles, felting. You’re contemplating carpentry, would like to build shelves for all the books stacked up in the den. Keep a dream journal by your bed that you neglect for weeks at a time.
You draw out the nights until you can count the hours until dawn on one hand. Stay up baking, making homemade ink, learning new ways to style your hair, anything, anything, anything—
It’s not the sleeping – or at least that’s not the worst of it. It’s the waking.
Laswell suggested a cat.
You told her to stop suggesting pussy to unstable people.
But it’s still not a bad idea. Another living thing to keep you accountable; the plants are pretty and time-consuming, but not good company.
You talk yourself out of it every time, knowing the worst-case scenario. It’s not catastrophizing if it actually happens, and you can feel an invisible time weighing on your shoulders like another gravity. Tick, tick, tick. Heavier, heavier, heavier. It’s hard to breathe beneath the wait.
The military doesn’t do apologies. It does platitudes at best. Well wishes and good intentions are painted in brushstrokes of blood. Victory flags are planted on bodies, living or otherwise. Laswell apologized. She swore that if there had been another way – any other way…
She didn’t promise to leave you alone. Didn’t assure you that you’d never see her or her goons again.
If you thought it would do any good, you’d tip one of the candles over and set it all aflame. Rebirth through fire. But you never did figure yourself for a phoenix. And besides, a phoenix is still itself, even when the ash falls away.
So, you spool out your time like picking at tapestry threads, one thin string at time.
Tonight, it’s bread. Cinnamon chocolate babka, to be specific. You were craving something sweet. Are debating the merits of some sort of cream cheese icing while you shower off the long, ever-busy day.
Have decided on an optimistic why not as you slip out to begin your overly complicated self-care routine. Moisturizers, hair oils, lotion. An unexpected benefit of overloading yourself, you suppose. Even when you first got out of the military, you didn’t take such good care of yourself. You have a jogging route now. You’re handling your trauma every possible way except therapy. (And sleeping.) Better than nothing, you figure.
The candles have gone out in your bedroom. You click your tongue in annoyance, trying to remember where you left the matches this time. Bedside table?
You pad across the soft carpet, using the edge of the bed as a guide in the pitch black. The only other problem with candles is that their humble light doesn’t reach very far. But you know this house and keep the floors tidy enough that you’re confident you won’t trip.
Make it to the nightstand without incident and pat around. Knock the side of your hand into the little carton and only just catch it before it hits the deck. Let out a little huff and start to fumble it open.
“Nice catch, bonnie.”
You gasp, but your voice doesn’t get any farther than the back of your tongue. The box slips from your numb fingers, matchsticks scattering across the floor. He tsks.
“Shame that. We’ll get ‘em later.”
You can’t move. Can barely breathe. You’re just frozen, heart thundering with a sudden storm of fear and confusion. Hands still aloft in front of you, spine rigid, knees locked.
You feel more than hear movement behind you, and then the warmth of his body seeping into your naked skin. Not quite touching. Not yet.
“Missed you, little bird,” he rasps in your ear.
You always thought that in a moment like this you would scream. Kick and elbow and fight, damn your certain loss. But when it comes down to it, survival drowns out all those stupid, haughty ideas about pride and dignity. So you don’t curse and shout like you always fancied you would.
You whisper, “Soap.”
He hums but it sounds like a growl in your panicked state. “Missed me too, aye? You’re already naked fer me.”
His hands are searing when they settle on your waist like they belong there. He pulls you back against him; in the dark he’s bigger, broader than you remember. At least, you think, he’s fully clothed for now.
“What are you… how are you here?” you ask.
He barks a laugh, mean and rough. “Was only a matter of time after that shite they pulled.”
You squeeze your eyes shut and see it recreated in the phosphenes behind your lids.
Soap buried balls deep inside of you, murmuring a constant stream of filth as he got harder and harder inside you. Filling you up as you twitched around him, oversensitive and teary, afraid of what would come next.
Then the lights flashed, flicked red. An alarm sounded, Laswell’s voice ordering Soap away from you. But he just snarled and hunched over you, hips snapping to bury himself right back inside while you cried out.
The locked door swung in, armed guards swarming in. Yanked Soap off you while you scrambled to cover yourself. Someone grabbing your arm none too gently to pull you from the room. Soap wild-eyed and snarling like something possessed, until he was overtaken by struggling guards and you were trembling naked in that damned hallway.
“Was mad at you, at first, cannae lie,” he says, almost conversational. Your eyes snap open, though you know it’ll do you no good. “But I’ve had time to think on it. Wasnae yer fault, was it? Saw them drag you out.”
An awful relief floods you. Fuck dignity, fuck honesty. This is Soap right behind you, completely unrestrained and unsupervised.
“Yeah,” you answer, voice small. “I didn’t know they would do that. What… um. What happened to you?”
He presses his face into your damp hair, pressing closer, snaking his arms to squeeze you against him.
“Sent me off on some shite mission,” he explains, “probably hoped I’d die out there. You smell so good, lass.”
You shiver as his breath ghosts over the sensitive skin of your neck. Hot, humid.
“And… and then what?” you insist, trying to stall.
You’re not sure what you’re stalling for. There will be no miraculous saves here – not that you really got any last time. It’s not like there’s any real plan to be made here, either. None that you’d be confident enough to risk his wrath on.
“Disappeared. Took care of business. Came to get my pretty little bird.”
A rough hand trails over the curve of your hip, brush the neat curls of your mound. You suck in a breath, hands twitching with the urge to stop him but not sure of putting up resistance when you’re still unsure of his mental state.
“And what about you, hm?” he rumbles. “Been a good girl while I’ve been away?”
His fingers dart down towards your entrance, not nearly prepared for anything. Least of all his thick digits.
“Y-yes!” you yelp, grabbing at his wrist. Relief makes you dizzy when you manage to stop him. “I-I’ve been good. Which means I’m not… I can’t just take you. I need… I need prep.”
He huffs, nips at the tender spot beneath your ear. The thrill that shoots through your stomach is terrifying.
“That’s what these are for, bonnie.”
And to your horror, he starts to push past your resistance like your staying hands aren’t there at all.
“John!”
He freezes. You shudder air into your burning lungs, feeling dizzy on panic.
You can get through this without pain, just think.
“I haven’t even got to see you,” you stutter, voice shaky. Can’t quite inject the disappointment you’re trying for, but hopefully it’ll work. “And I bet you’re all dirty from travel.”
He grumbles. “So what?”
You scramble to think of a satisfactory response. “S-so let’s get reacquainted in the shower, yeah? That way I can see your handsome face, at least.”
He chuckles, grazes his teeth “playfully” across your cheek. “Bossy thing.”
“You like it.”
And to your shock, he agrees with an amused huff. Hauls you up in his arms and walks you back to the still muggy bathroom. You’re set on your feet and spun around, chin jerked up to receive a savage kiss. All tongue and teeth, no finesse. He’s just licking into your mouth, hungry and animalistic, spit dribbling down your chin.
When he finally pulls away, you blink spots from your vision. Finally focus on his smug features and make a soft, horrified noise when you register the splatter of crimson across them.
“Och, that? My little bird had watchers.”
Of course you did. The horror ebbs a bit. Resentment has made you indiscriminately bitter.
“Oh,” you say, “th-thank you. Definitely glad we’re showering first, then.”
“Squeamish?”
You’d like to know when the world turned upside down and John fucking “Soap” MacTavish began teasing you about the blood on his face.
“A bit,” you admit.
“Poor dear,” he coos. “Hard to believe we were made for each other sometimes, aye? Complementary, we are.”
Is that what he thinks? Christ.
You turn to start the shower again, spine prickling with the weight of his eyes on your back. The water rushes down and then he’s crowding you against the cold wall beneath the (thankfully) warm spray.
“Y-you’re still dressed!” you protest between sharp nips to your collarbone.
“Fix it, then,” he snarls.
You claw his shirt up his back, get momentarily distracted by the impressive display of muscle hidden beneath. Draw your palms over his chest and feel him shudder.
“Fuckin’ heavenly, love,” he purrs. “Missed this.”
A vague memory comes back to you, him gripping you close because he felt you naked against him for the first time. Him admitting he hasn’t had affectionate touch in a while.
This… this you could work with.
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slutforyou0 · 4 months
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Am I breedable?? 🥺👉👈
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hadesoftheladies · 5 months
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i know we joke a lot during misandry hours, but the fact of the matter is men aren't inhuman. they do have convictions and conscience. they do have love and compassion. they are capable of immense kindness, thoughtfulness and empathy. they are very often curious and intelligent.
the difference is they don't think of women as having any of those things hence don't extend the moral consideration they would extend toward "fellow human beings". they genuinely view women as animals. and how do they view animals? as primitive. infantile. not as evolved or cultivated. mostly mindless hence mostly incapable of suffering. they don't have as much mind and their "self" is weak, so there is no memory or centralized experience, no history to the individual woman.
the same way a man can have a dog and slaughter a screaming chicken is the same way he can be a loving husband to his wife and still rape an underage girl. it's how they've all lived for so long that it's not contradictory to their behavior.
so him being nice to "his women" isn't proof you're safe with him. him demonstrating any virtue to others still isn't proof you're safe with him. him being devout to a "kind loving god" is not proof you're safe with him. him humouring you on anything isn't proof you're safe with him. him being gnc is not proof you're safe with him.
his humanity does not mean he sees you as human as well. it is nowhere near a guarantee. please understand this.
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aphroditeslesbian · 14 days
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The reality of Gisele Pelicot is horrific and yet she chose to have a public trial to raise awareness for sexual crimes such as the ones she was a victim of. I can't wrap my mind around the pain she has faced, and on top of that the horror her daughter has faced. And the great strength they're displaying by chosing to share this with the public in detriment to themselves.
Her daughter's naked pictures were also found in her father's computer under a folder named "around my daughter, naked". The level of psychological horror and abuse these women have been through is not only terrifying, it's disgusting. It's hard to read about. It's hard to conceptualize.
He did this for years. The men involved took no action. No one helped Gisele Pelicot between 2011 and 2020, and yet she is choosing to help other women by having a public trial.
I can only wish Gisele Pelicot and her daughter the best possible lives after this tragedy. I hope they remain safe and well.
And I hope that the disgusting men behind their suffering will face consequences on par with these unspeakable acts.
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warningsine · 15 days
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https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/02/world/europe/france-husband-rape-drug-trial-mazan.html
For years, she had been losing hair and weight. She had started forgetting whole days, and sometimes appeared to be in dreamlike trances. Her children and friends worried she had Alzheimer’s.
But in late 2020, after she was summoned to a police station in southern France, she learned a far more shattering story.
Her husband of 50 years, Dominique Pelicot, had been crushing sleeping pills into her food and drink to put her into a deep sleep, the police said, and then raping her. He had ushered dozens of men into her home to film them raping her, too, they said, in abuse that lasted nearly a decade.
Using the man’s photographs, videos and online messages, the police spent the next two years identifying and charging those other suspects.
On Monday, 51 men, including Mr. Pelicot, went on trial in Avignon, in a case that has shocked France and cast a spotlight on the use of drugs to commit sexual abuse and the broader culture in which such crimes could occur.
The accused men represent a kaleidoscope of working-class and middle-class French society: truck drivers, soldiers, carpenters and trade workers, a prison guard, a nurse, an I.T. expert working for a bank, a local journalist. They range in age from 26 to 74. Many have children and are in relationships.
Most are charged with raping the woman once. A handful are accused of returning as many as six times to rape her.
The victim, Gisèle, who has divorced her husband and changed her surname since his arrest, is now in her 70s.
Since his arrest, Mr. Pelicot, 71, has “always declared himself guilty,” said Béatrice Zavarro, his lawyer. “He is not at all contesting his role.”
Other defendants have denied the rape charges, with some arguing that they had the husband’s permission and thought that was sufficient, while others claimed they believed the victim had agreed to be drugged.
When the police showed Gisèle some of the photographs they say her husband had carefully classified and stored, she expressed deep shock. She and her husband had been together since they were 18. She had described him to the police as caring and considerate.
She had no memory of being raped, by him or the other men, only one of whom she recognized, she told the police, as a neighbor in town.
The first time she will consciously witness the rapes, her lawyer Antoine Camus says, will be in the courtroom when the video recordings are played as evidence.
The trial comes at a moment of heightened scrutiny of the handling of sexual crimes in the country. Rape is defined in French law as an “act of sexual penetration” committed “by violence, coercion, threat or surprise.” A number of feminist lawmakers want to amend that wording to say explicitly that sex without consent is rape, that consent can be withdrawn at any time, and that consent cannot exist if sexual assault is committed “by abusing a state impairing the judgment of another.”
“There is a kind of naïveté on the topic of predators in France, a kind of denial,” said Sandrine Josso, a lawmaker who led a parliamentary commission into what is known in France as “chemical submission” — drugging someone with malicious intent. She started the commission after she says she became the victim of a drugging last year. A senator is being investigated on accusations that he slipped Ecstasy into her Champagne.
Ms. Josso hopes that the Avignon trial will draw attention to the use of drugs to prey on women, and also shed light on the wide profile of predators. “They could be your neighbors, without falling into paranoia,” she said.
Mr. Pelicot seemed like a classic man next door. He was a trained electrician, an entrepreneur and an avid cyclist. His middle child and only daughter, Caroline Darian, her pen name, described him as a warm and present father in a book published in 2022 about the case, “And I Stopped Calling You Papa.” She tried to turn her family trauma into action, forming a nonprofit association, “Don’t Put Me to Sleep,” to publicize the dangers of drug-facilitated crimes.
Her father, she wrote, was the one who drove her to school, picked her up late from parties, encouraged her and consoled her. Her mother was the stable breadwinner, working as a manager in a Paris-area company for 20 years.
When Gisèle retired, they moved to a house with a big garden and pool in Mazan, a small town northeast of Avignon. The couple regularly hosted their three children and grandchildren for summer vacations peppered with late dinners on the terrace, where the family debated, held dance competitions and played Trivial Pursuit.
“I think of us as happy,” his daughter wrote. “I thought my parents were.”
None of them harbored any suspicions. Then, in 2020, three women reported Mr. Pelicot to the police for trying to use his camera to film up their skirts in a grocery store, and he was arrested.
The police seized his two cellphones, two cameras and his electronic devices, including his laptop, before releasing him on bail.
On the devices, the police say they found 300 photographs and a video of an unconscious woman being sexually assaulted by many people. They said they also found Skype messages in which the man boasted of drugging his wife and invited men to join him in having sex with her while she was unconscious.
Over the course of their investigation, the police found more than 20,000 videos and photographs, many of them dated and labeled, in an electronic folder titled “abuse.” The timeline they built began in 2011. The list of suspects grew to 83.
Two months after his initial arrest, Mr. Pelicot was arrested again and charged with aggravated rape, drugging and a list of sexual abuse charges. He is also accused of violating the privacy of his wife, daughter and two daughters-in-law on suspicion of illegally recording, and at times distributing, intimate photos of them.
If he is found guilty, he faces up to 20 years in prison.
During interviews with the police, the details of which were included in an overview of the case by the investigative judge, Mr. Pelicot said he began drugging his wife so he could do things to her, and dress her in things, that she normally refused. Then he started inviting others to participate. He said he never asked for or accepted money.
He met most of the men, the investigating judge’s report stated, in a chat room on a notorious, unmoderated French website implicated in more than 23,000 police cases in France alone from 2021 to 2024. It was finally shut down, and its owner arrested, in June after an 18-month investigation stretching across Europe.
The chat room where most of the men met Mr. Pelicot was called “a son insu,” which means “without their knowledge.”
Over the years, Mr. Pelicot told the police, he developed rules for the visitors to ensure that his wife did not wake: no smoking or cologne; undress in the kitchen; warm hands under hot water or on a radiator, so their cold touch would not jolt her. At the end of each night, according to the investigating judge’s report, he cleaned his wife’s body.
Of the 83 suspects, the police identified and charged 50.
Only one of the men is not charged with rape, assault or attempted rape of Mr. Pelicot’s wife. Instead, that man is accused of following the same model, and drugging his own wife to rape her. Mr. Pelicot is also charged with raping the man’s wife while she was drugged.
Five of the men also face charges for possessing child sexual abuse imagery.
Mr. Pelicot is also being investigated in the rape and murder of a 23-year-old woman in 1991 and the attempted rape of a 19-year-old in 1999. He admitted to the attempted rape, according to Florence Rault, the lawyer representing the victims in both cases, but denies any involvement in the 1991 homicide.
The story has prompted some soul-searching among doctors, since Gisèle had visited gynecologists and neurologists over a series of mystifying symptoms, but had received no diagnosis, according to her daughter.
“What I found disturbing for us doctors was that no doctor considered this hypothesis,” said Dr. Ghada Hatem-Gantzer, a well known obstetrician-gynecologist and expert in violence against women. She and a pharmacist, Leila Chaouachi, have now developed training for doctors and nurses on the symptoms that victims of drug-facilitated assault can experience.
Contrary to popular belief, most cases occur at home, not at bars, said Ms. Chaouachi, who runs annual surveys on such offenses in France. Most victims are women, the surveys show, and around half of the victims do not remember the attack, because of blackouts, she said.
In the case going to court in Avignon, some of the accused admitted guilt to the police. According to the investigating judge’s report, many claimed that they were tricked into having sex with a drugged woman — lured by a husband for a three-way encounter and told she was pretending to sleep, because she was shy.
Several said they believed that she had consented to being drugged and raped as part of a sex fantasy. Some said they did not believe it was rape, because her husband was there and they believed he could consent for both of them.
“It sends shivers down the spine regarding the state of affairs in French society,” said Mr. Camus, who is also representing Ms. Darian and many other members of the family. “If that’s the conception of consent in sexual matters in 2024, then we have a lot, a lot, a lot of work to do.”
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garlic-and-cloves · 19 days
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How can people look at Hamas and think they are good?
How can they see how Hamas violently raped, murdered, and took hostage Israeli civilians on October 7th and support that?
How can anyone read how Hamas continued sexually assaulting, starving, and torturing those hostages and not say anything?
How can anyone hear how they just murdered 6 hostages 3 days ago so they'd be dead instead of rescued and not hate Hamas and what they've done?
How can anyone know how many ceasefires Hamas has broken, how they've launched rockets from hospitals, how they've prevented aid from getting to their own civilians and still see them as having done no wrong?
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