If we had to be stuck in a forest with a man or a bear, we'd pick the bear.

Gisèle Pélicot was drugged by her husband and raped by over 80 men over the course of a decade. She had no idea.

Content note. I didn’t plan to write this - I’ve actually already sent a newsy out to paid subscribers this morning, but after reading and posting about the bravery of Gisèle Pélicot, I want everyone to know her name.

Here’s her story, read with utmost care <3

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If we had to be stuck in a forest with a man or a bear, we'd pick the bear.

This is Gisèle Pélicot: a 72-year-old French woman, who has suffered a decade of sexual abuse, all orchestrated by her husband, Dominique Pélicot, and who only found out about it in 2020.

Her husband would crush up sleeping tablets and anti-anxiety medication, mix them into her dinner or her wine, and then enlist men that he’d contacted in “online chatrooms, where members discussed preferences for non-consenting partners,” to rape her. Fifty men are on trial for allegedly taking part in this abuse.

This was calculated, of course it was. There were rules:

“The accused men recruited by her husband were instructed to avoid smelling of any kind of fragrance or cigarette smoke to avoid alerting his wife and to leave if she moved so much as an arm, investigators said.” - The Guardian

When asked if she recognised any of the men, Gisèle said she recognised just one:

“He was our neighbour. He came over to check our bikes. I used to see him at the bakery. He was always polite. I had no idea he was coming to rape me.”

The other men on trial (who were aged 22-70) include “a local councillor, nurses, a journalist, a former police officer, a prison guard, soldier, firefighter and civil servant.”

How they found out

In many ways, the only way they found out about this decade of abuse was luck. After a security guard caught her husband filming up the skirts of women in a supermarket near their home in November 2020, police started investigating his computer. On a USB drive connected to his computer, they found a file labelled “abuses” that contained 20,000 images and films of his wife being raped almost 100 times.

“Recounting the moment in November 2020 when police first showed her images of a decade of sexual abuse orchestrated by her husband, Pélicot, who had been drugged to the point of unconsciousness, told the court: “My world fell apart. For me, everything was falling apart. Everything I had built up over 50 years.”

She said she had barely recognised herself in the images, saying she was motionless. “I was sacrificed on the altar of vice,” she said. “They regarded me like a rag doll, like a garbage bag.”

The ‘unknown’ suffering was manifesting itself in other ways for Gisèle

After finding out what had been happening to her, Gisèle underwent medical tests which showed that she’d contracted several sexually transmitted diseases from the abuse. But her suffering wasn’t just physical.

“She told the court that without knowing she was being regularly drugged at night, she had begun to have difficulties remembering things and concentrating and even feared taking the train to see her adult children in case she missed her stop. She said she had lost weight and at one point had difficulty controlling her arm.”

Because of her difficulties remembering things and concentrating, worried that she was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, who “said he had supported her and booked an appointment with a specialist, who said it was not Alzheimer’s.”

Gisèle doesn’t want to be anonymous

The reason I think I felt so compelled to write about this is because Gisèle herself waived her right to anonymity. She did this because she wanted the trial to be held in public because she is testifying for “all women” who have been assaulted while drugged to ensure “no woman suffers this.”

“When you see that woman drugged, mistreated, a dead person on a bed – of course the body is not cold, it’s warm, but it’s as if I’m dead.” She told the court rape was not a strong enough word, it was torture.

At one point she was “reminded” that it had been agreed that they wouldn’t use the word rape in court, but instead use “sex scene,” to which she replied:

“I just think they should recognise the facts. When I think of what they have done I am overcome with disgust. They should at least have the responsibility to recognise what they did.”

The trial is expected to last four months, and Dominique Pélicot, along with the 50 other defendants face 20 years in prison if convicted of aggravated rape.

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I posted this story on Instagram this morning, and I wanted to include some of your thoughts about it because you often have better words to describe things than I do:

• “The fact that there are always enough guys willing to do this is so fucking hard to bear.”

• “4 SEXUALLY TRANSMITTED DISEASES!!! This is not only a complete violation of her autonomy and her freedom to choose, it is a risk and violation to her health. They won’t call it r*pe but that’s what it is. If there was a more horrible word, it’s that too.”

• “My stomach dropped when I read they were married for 50 years”

• “There’s men that still don’t understand we pick the bear every fucking time. Her bravery is astounding.”

• “Men that lived within the area”. The fact that there were so many men within a small distance willing to do this just proves that “not all men” but “most men, and always men”.

• "He was our neighbour. He came over to check our bikes. I used to see him at the bakery. He was always polite. I had no idea he was coming to rape me." - this line really hit me in the gut. This woman deserves every ounce of justice and as much good as this world can offer.”

• “Out of those 90+ men......imagine the hundreds if not thousands of men who saw/were invited who never reported this. Not a single man thought this was wrong. Some of them were police officers according to a French journalist who has had to retract statements so that this can go to court "safely."“

• “Gisèle is such a brave soul, bless her. I can't stop thinking that this horrific case was brought to light because someone caught her husband taking pictures of women in changing rooms. It hurts me so much to just think that there must be so many Gisèle's out there.”

• “Every single one of them should be named and prosecuted to the absolute fullest extent. What an incredible woman to find the strength to fight for other women in her darkest hours and share her story with the world. May she find solace and peace and be surrounded by love for the rest of her days, as well as a whole lot of money and sunshine.”

I love you, be gentle with yourself, think of Gisèle and everything she stands for today 𓆩♡𓆪 xxx