Pornography and the truth about the Pelicot case

There have been protests in 30 cities across France, people marching in outrage over the case of Dominique Pelicot who drugged his wife Gisèle and raped her and invited more than 70 other men – strangers – to come to his house and rape her too. Pelicot is a monster, a modern-day Bluebeard. But what has shocked France most is how very many normal Frenchmen he was able to find, in and around his Provencal village, who were up for having sex with an unconscious woman.

A firefighter, a painter, several businessmen… every week as the trial continues another set of these ordinary men shamble into the courthouse in Avignon and make their bad excuses. They thought it was consensual, they say, and that Gisèle was in on it; that she was faking sleep.