Gisele Pelicot - some justice at last

[Thora]

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[AnnO'Neemus]

Don't think this has been posted yet, and am a but late to it (think it was published one the 16th, not 26th as it says on the website). A really excellent article on LRB about the case and its implications.

Sophie Smith · Sleeping Women: On the Pelicot trial

I've been teaching sex ed for around 7/8 years and been redesigning our course with academics for the past 2. One of the things I find very hard to convey to the students (usually boys, but not always) is the impact culture can have on normalising, justifying of hiding sexual assault and sexual violence. Many are determined to believe that it is the result of bad apples and that they and their friends would never tolerate sexist or sexually abusive/violent behavior (even though as staff we see warning signs of this in the playground). It feels like there is such a dominant culture of individualism which allows people to distance themselves from certain behavior when its convenient for them.

I'd hope that Gisele Pelicot's bravery would make these discussions more easy - seems like that was a significant part of her reasoning for a public trail - but the pessimistic side of me worries it won't.

What I fear most is not that Dominique Pelicot's crimes will transfer shame where it rightly belongs, ie to the men who perpetrate these crimes, as per Gisele Pelicot's intentions and wishes, but that the coverage of this trial in the media will have planted the seed into the minds of many boys and men that wanting to have sex with a girl/woman who is 'asleep' (in fact, unconscious due to being drugged) and moreover wanting to have sex with an unconscious girl or woman while her partner is watching is a 'normal' kink, because scores of men engaged in it, as evidenced through the Pelicot trial. And not only that, but countless other men engaged in this kind of activity through forums on the web.

If thousands of people do something, that's not deviant/criminal behaviour, right? It's a kink.

I mean, setting aside for one moment that Gisele Pelicot was drugged and unconscious, how many couples have had sex in the morning where the man's woken up and gone at it and that's how the woman's been woken up?

The whole issue of consent has been messed up for a really long time, with the assumption among many men being that if a woman has consented to sex once, or especially if they're in a long-term relationship, then that consent is kind of irrevocable, within that relationship, until the relationship ends.

I fear that the response of many boys and men, upon hearing the horrific details of Gisele Pelicot's ordeal, won't have been 'Ohmigod, that's horrendous! That poor woman! What an evil husband' but will instead be 'Blimey! There are websites for that kind of thing? Googles to find awful websites '

 

[Santino]

being a man i can speak to this authoritatively. it's bullshit. neither i nor any man i know has even contemplated a rape.

This is definitely false.

 

[SpookyFrank]

being a man i can speak to this authoritatively. it's bullshit. neither i nor any man i know has even contemplated a rape.

Might not be the time or the place for the 'not all men' routine.

 

[Callie]

being a man i can speak to this authoritatively. it's bullshit. neither i nor any man i know has even contemplated a rape.

You make some reasonable points I guess - it's not good to ignore or belittle when women rape men. Unfortunately stating that you know for an absolute fact no man you know has ever contemplated rape. Can you really, honestly state that you know all of the thoughts of every man you know. Seriously?

maybe we could can this reactionarily gendered rhetoric and focus on status differences? does the woman from the mayflower background or the tenement raised immigrants' boy have the upper hand? is it a rape at all if a woman does it?

Is it reactionarily gendered? Or do we have sufficient actual evidence (cases reported, prosecutions, first hand accounts) to quote reasonably say the threat of men raping women is greater than the threat of women raping men? By some margin.

As for status - what is Gisele Pelicots status in this case? If it's so relevant?

 

[Rebelda]

Most of the men who raped Gisele Pelicot didn't believe they were raping her, because they had her husband's permission and other dubious reasons. I think it's a stretch to be confident of anything when even the definition of rape has needed work.

 

[Thora]

Most of the men who raped Gisele Pelicot didn't believe they were raping her, because they had her husband's permission and other dubious reasons. I think it's a stretch to be confident of anything when even the definition of rape has needed work.

Depends on what question is asked, doesn't it? If you ask 'would you commit a rape' only psychos would say yes (well, 13% of respondents anyway).
If you ask 'would you force a woman to have sex if no one ever knew and there were no consequences for you' then lots say yes.

The ugly truth about sexual assault: More men admit to it if you don't call it rape

A researcher tells Salon about the startling data on men's ideas about sexual assault -- and how to change them

www.salon.com

Among the respondents, a group of 73 straight male students, one in three reported that they would force a woman to have sex if they knew they could get away with it. According to the report, 31 percent of the men surveyed said they would force a woman to have sex "if nobody would ever know and there wouldn’t be any consequences."

But when researchers asked the same question, this time dropping the language of forced sex and using the word rape instead, that number dropped to 13 percent.

Not just hypothetically but plenty will self-report actual rapes and sexual assaults too.

A Longitudinal Examination of Male College Students’ Perpetration of Sexual Assault - PMC

Self-administered surveys were completed by 197 men in college at 2 time points, 1 year apart. Men who committed sexual assault at multiple time points (repeat assaulters) had the most extreme scores on measures of hostility toward women, past ...

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Among the 197 participants who completed both the initial and follow-up surveys, 69 participants reported that they had committed at least one sexual assault since the age of 14 years on the Time 1 survey (35%). The highest level of sexual assault reported by 33 of the men was forced sexual contact (16.8%), 19 men reported verbally coerced sexual intercourse (9.6%), and 17 men committed attempted or completed rape (8.6%). All of the perpetrators assaulted women they knew. Of these men, 57% sexually assaulted a casual date and 33% sexually assaulted a steady dating partner.

Incidence of Sexual Assault During 1-Year Follow-Up Time Period​

During the 1-year time interval (M = 1.07 years, SD = 0.26) between the two survey administrations, 28 participants reported that they committed a sexual assault (14.2%). The highest level of sexual assault committed by 11 of these men was forced sexual contact (5.6%), 8 men committed verbal sexual coercion (4.1%), and 9 men committed attempted or completed rape (4.5%). All of the perpetrators knew the woman that they sexually assaulted; 43% involved a steady dating partner, and 43% involved a casual date.

Of course it's possible that men living in France and American college students are unusually prone to rape compared to the rest of the world

 

[Thora]

And I can already hear the argument that forced sexual contact or verbal coercion in a relationship doesn't count as rape but I'm not interested.

 

[AnnO'Neemus]

Depends on what question is asked, doesn't it? If you ask 'would you commit a rape' only psychos would say yes (well, 13% of respondents anyway).
If you ask 'would you force a woman to have sex if no one ever knew and there were no consequences for you' then lots say yes.

The ugly truth about sexual assault: More men admit to it if you don't call it rape

A researcher tells Salon about the startling data on men's ideas about sexual assault -- and how to change them

www.salon.com

Not just hypothetically but plenty will self-report actual rapes and sexual assaults too.

A Longitudinal Examination of Male College Students’ Perpetration of Sexual Assault - PMC

Self-administered surveys were completed by 197 men in college at 2 time points, 1 year apart. Men who committed sexual assault at multiple time points (repeat assaulters) had the most extreme scores on measures of hostility toward women, past ...

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Of course it's possible that men living in France and American college students are unusually prone to rape compared to the rest of the world

Yeah, I'm sure that at the time, back in my late teens, the boyfriend who wouldn't accept 'No' for an answer and would just pin me to the floor and fuck me anyway didn't consider it rape. I mean, I didn't. Rape was something that happened in a darkened alley when attacked by a stranger. It was only years later when the term 'date rape' became a thing that was reported and bandied around.

Thankfully, there's more awareness nowadays of the issues of consent, including within relationships, but still there's too much male entitlement to women's bodies, perhaps the increased awareness of issues of consent has been outweighed by the more easy availability of porn over the internet and boys and men having unrealistic expectations about sexual relationships as a result?

 

[emanymton]

Depends on what question is asked, doesn't it? If you ask 'would you commit a rape' only psychos would say yes (well, 13% of respondents anyway).
If you ask 'would you force a woman to have sex if no one ever knew and there were no consequences for you' then lots say yes.

The ugly truth about sexual assault: More men admit to it if you don't call it rape

A researcher tells Salon about the startling data on men's ideas about sexual assault -- and how to change them

www.salon.com

Not just hypothetically but plenty will self-report actual rapes and sexual assaults too.

A Longitudinal Examination of Male College Students’ Perpetration of Sexual Assault - PMC

Self-administered surveys were completed by 197 men in college at 2 time points, 1 year apart. Men who committed sexual assault at multiple time points (repeat assaulters) had the most extreme scores on measures of hostility toward women, past ...

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Of course it's possible that men living in France and American college students are unusually prone to rape compared to the rest of the world

And as those are self reports the real numbers will be higher still.