Photo: MAEVA DESTOMBES/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images

The crime at the center of the Mazan rape case is almost too big to fathom: Over the course of nearly a decade, a man drugged his wife and invited at least 70 strangers to rape her in her own bed. The woman, 72-year-old Gisèle Pelicot, found out about the operation when police showed her the more than 20,000 videos and images stored on her now-ex-husband Dominique’s devices. The same scene repeated itself again and again: a rotating group of men performing sexual acts on her lifeless body as she lay sprawled and unconscious on her bed, incapacitated by the superdose of lorazepam that Dominique mixed into her evening ice cream. As the side effects of the medication began, Gisèle became convinced that she was suffering from Alzheimer’s or a brain tumor – and Dominique took care of her. He drove her to neurological specialists, accompanied her to the gynecologist, and was available for an MRI. He was the love of her life, she said, her “perfect husband,” someone she “completely trusted.” She never thought he was capable of such “immeasurable” betrayal until she saw it for herself.

When the case was heard in Avignon this fall, Gisèle waived her right to privacy and released three months of grueling testimony for the public to analyze. But even after all the hours of questioning, it’s no easier to understand how this happened. In his final statements to the court, Dominique said he wanted to “subdue an unruly woman… without making her suffer.” He now faces up to 20 years in prison because he fully admitted to the plan. The fate of his co-defendants is less clear.

These are men between the ages of 26 and 74 who come from a wide variety of professions, men, in many cases with children and partners and even their own grandchildren: “Monsieur Tout le Monde” or Mr. Everyman, as French media reports describe them Accused people were baptized en masse. Psychological experts who examined the defendants found “no personality disorders,” “no particular defects” and “no psychological pathologies” that could explain their involvement, except perhaps a lack of empathy, according to BFMTV. A handful of the men have previous convictions for domestic violence and sexual abuse, while several face charges of possession of child pornography. But overall they were described in court as good fathers, good husbands, loving and gentle men – ordinary men, except for the extraordinary behavior caught on camera.

Because Gisèle demanded that Dominique’s videos be shown during the trial, the courtroom watched as these everymen shoved their penises into her mouth, which was held open by Dominique; Roll her lifeless body onto her side to penetrate her from behind. attacked her anally while she remained limp and lifeless. But given the reality of their actions, very few have admitted that they committed rape, whether intentionally or not. The majority cringed, deflected, denied and looked for all sorts of justifications, while Gisèle sat silently by.

“I’m not a rapist, but if I wanted to rape I wouldn’t have chosen a 57-year-old woman. “I would have chosen a pretty model,” said Ahmed T., a plumber who claimed Gisèle was just shy. “I don’t ask myself questions, like a zombie on autopilot,” said Romain V., an HIV-positive former truck driver. He insisted that in all six of his visits he believed Gisèle was only “half awake and tired”, even though the videos showed her snoring while he performed oral sex on her.

French law does not take consent into account in its legal definition of rape and only recognizes penetrative sexual acts committed “by force, coercion, threat or surprise.” The omission leaves open a loophole that the defendants readily exploited by claiming that they believed Gisèle to be a willing participant in a sex game. “I could not have guessed that it happened without her knowledge as her husband is supposed to protect her,” Mohamed R., a man previously convicted of raping his young daughter, argued in his testimony. Another defendant, Husamettin D., pleaded that it was not he, but Dominique, who had done something wrong: “I never thought that this guy could do something like that to his own wife.” In his video, Christian L. gave a thumbs up up into the camera after collapsing over Gisèle’s comatose body, fumbling his statement that “my body raped her, but my brain didn’t.” Most of the defendants fell on the same idea: It depends on the man’s intention, not the woman’s consent.

Of course, there were clues that something was wrong everywhere, starting with the name of the chat room where these men met Dominique: “Without her knowledge.” Then there were the ground rules he set for entry into the Pelicot home. The defendant could not appear smelling of cologne or cigarette smoke, as foreign scents could later arouse Gisèle’s suspicions. They had to wait until she was unconscious to sneak into the house, and when they did they had to speak quietly so as not to wake her. Before entering the bedroom, hands had to be warmed on the radiator and clothes had to be taken off in the kitchen. Several men said that Dominique sent them off at the slightest sign of Gisèle waking up.

Yet none of the defendants apparently bothered to ask why so much secrecy would be necessary if Gisèle was involved in the plan. While several admitted to finding the situation suspicious – one even went so far as to compare the encounter to “making love to a corpse” – only two walked away and not a single one went to the police. Jacques C., 74, said that as he left the Pelicots’ home, he thought about contacting law enforcement because he noticed that Gisèle had shown “no reaction” when he “caressed” her . But the next day “life went back on track” and that was it. Patrice N. said he never reported Dominique because “I didn’t want to waste my time at the police station, and who would even believe me?”

The crux of most rape cases is belief. Typically, the only witnesses are the two parties involved, and even if the victim has evidence – a hospital rape test, for example – it still comes down to one person’s word against the other’s. That wasn’t the case in Mazan, where prosecutors had not only Dominique’s confession but also his stunning digital footprint to prove their claims. Without these archives, it is possible that Dominique would have continued to abuse Gisèle “until she was killed,” as her lawyer put it in court. But irrefutable as the evidence was, it failed to inspire real introspection in most men. Of the 51 defendants in court, none attempted to inquire about Gisèle, even as they touched her unresponsive body. It never occurred to them to do this.

Ever since she discovered her ex-husband’s plan, the question has been on Gisèle’s mind Why? Why would Dominique do this to her and why did so many people help him? She was there for 48 days, witnessing what she called a “trial for cowardice.” She allowed the worst moments of her life to be publicly dissected, hoping to make sense of the incomprehensible. Her determination has won her widespread support, both from the women who gather outside the courthouse every day and from observers around the world who stand up against the abject horror of the case. Nevertheless, the trial did not answer Gisèle’s questions; A year marked by a resurgence of men’s rights only spawned new ones.

I think about how exuberantly the incel catchphrase “Your body, my choice” floated around social media after Donald Trump’s re-election, as young men celebrated the triumph of a trade agenda. At a time when the achievements of gender equality once again seem fleeting, the Pelicot trial makes me wonder how many men would prefer not to consider a woman’s humanity at all. Dominique’s plan was relatively easy to implement: just a half-hour drive from his home, Dominique could find dozens of strangers ready and willing to attack his wife. Some of these strangers returned once, twice, even six times with full knowledge of the circumstances. And despite all of Dominique’s footage showing us exactly who did what, the majority still had the audacity to say they weren’t responsible, revealing a fundamental belief that their feelings about a sexual encounter should define them , whatever it was – no matter what the woman wanted. Ultimately, that’s the common thread: the defendant wasn’t thinking about the woman lying on the bed. They have themselves to blame for this.