French Woman Gisèle Pélicot Whose Husband Drugged And Invited Men To Rape Her Opts For Public Trial
71-year-old Gisèle Pélicot was drugged by her husband and raped at least 92 times by 72 men between 2011 and 2020 without her knowledge.
This French woman who found out her husband had been drugging her and getting men to come over to rape her for years asked for the trial to be public and people are praising her for her bravery.
71-year-old Gisèle Pélicot was drugged by her husband and raped at least 92 times by 72 men between 2011 and 2020 without her knowledge.
Her husband of 50 years, Dominique, would allegedly mix sleeping and anti-anxiety pills into her food or drinks and then invite different men to their home to rape her when she became unconscious.
Dominique would find these men in a private online chatroom, where members discussed performing sexual acts on their partners without their consent.
He would invite other men to rape his wife and to watch videos of the assault afterwards.
He gave them strict instructions to follow before entering the house, such as parking far away and to not wear any fragrances or smoke cigarettes, so that Gisèle would not find out.
She only found out in October 2020 after Dominique was arrested for filming a video of a woman's underskirt in a supermarket, which led to a police investigation.
Police found a file on Dominique's computer named "abuses" containing more than 20,000 photos and videos of Gisèle being raped and sexually abused while unconscious, according to the New York Times.
Police called Gisèle and Dominique in for an interview, when they asked her about their sex life.
She said that she had never engaged in swapping partners or threesomes but then police said they had to show them some photos.
Gisèle said she initially did not recognize the woman in the photo until they showed her more photos.
She said her world fell apart.
She had been losing her hair, losing her weight and losing her memory on some days but did not know, despite several medical examinations, that it was due to the rapes.
Police took 2 years to track down all the men, identifying 50 of them, aged between 26 and 68 at the time.
Gisèle said one of the men had been HIV positive, but she later tested negative.
Dominique has plead guilty but several of the men did not, saying they thought it was consensual, they were tricked into it or told by Dominique that she was pretending to be asleep.
During the trial, which began on Monday Sep. 2, Gisèle chose not to be anonymous and asked to have the trial be public instead of private.
She said she hoped to let everyone know about what she had experienced, to speak for “every woman who had been drugged without their knowledge” and place the shame on the men instead of on her.
The trial is expected to last until December.
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