I’ve treated too many men like Pelicot to be horrified by the French mass rape

For the past few weeks, I’ve been following the rape trial of Dominique Pelicot in France with sorrow and dismay, but not horror. I have assessed and treated too many men like Pelicot to feel horrified by the myriad of perverse ways in which men hurt women any more.

Pelicot is accused of drugging his then wife, Gisele, and recruiting up to 80 different men over a nine-year period to rape her within their home while she lay unconscious. Alongside the 71-year-old grandfather, a further 50 men are also on trial as part of the case.

Gisèle Pelicot, left, and her ex-husband Dominique Pelicot, right, during his rape trial, at the Avignon courthouse, in Avignon, southern France.Credit: AP

The broader conversations that have stemmed from the trial have centred around rape culture and the importance of teaching boys and men consent. As a forensic psychologist, I welcome these conversations, but I also believe that if we want to reduce incidences of sexual violence we need to become much more sophisticated in our understanding of sexual offending,

I have spoken to men who have raped women with instruments like knives and hammers. Men who have set fire to women. Men who have killed sexual partners and then mutilated their corpses. I have worked with men like Pelicot, who used substances to drug their partners before raping them.

They, and many other men like them and Pelicot, walk among us. And they have all found ways to justify or rationalise their acts, despite having some awareness their actions were both illegal and harmful to their victims: She wanted it. She led me on. We were drunk. She’s a junkie; you can’t believe her. She cheated on me, and I was angry, so I tied her up and had sex with her.

Some wielded rape as a weapon, others wanted to assert power as a counter to the disempowerment they felt in other areas of their life. A few simply found sadistic sexual acts arousing. The one thing they all had in common was that they knew their victims had not consented. For some, this itself was the appeal.

Pelicot said of his offending: “I loved [my wife] well for 40 years, and badly for 10.”

While a small percentage of men do engage in sexual violence because of a lack of understanding of how to seek affirmative consent, most people who engage in sexual violence do so knowingly and deliberately. In failing to accept and acknowledge this awful truth, we risk missing essential details in the intra-individual differences which characterise sexual offenders.

Research indicates that there are multiple drivers for sexual violence, including attitudes supportive of sexual assault (misogyny, entitlement to sex), intimacy deficits and difficulties having relational needs met, personality disorders, sexual deviance or hypersexuality, antisociality (callousness, not caring about social norms or other people’s needs), and difficulties with self-regulation (such as coping with stress or delaying gratification). Contextual factors like substance use can also elevate risk by disinhibiting someone.

Each sexual offender will have a unique constellation of needs and difficulties, too. While one offender might be driven by strong sexual deviance coupled with antisociality (e.g. having sexual interest in violent sex involving strangulation and not caring if a sexual partner is hurt in the process), another offender might rape someone because they have internalised misogynistic attitudes which are supportive of rape (e.g. believing women play coy, but really want sex) and have difficulties inhibiting impulsive action.

Carefully and clearly understanding why a person offends in a certain manner at a certain time is essential, and it’s only by putting together the pieces of this dark and twisted jigsaw that we can work out ways to dismantle it.

This process of understanding and dismantling someone’s offence “map” to help them understand the smaller steps that led to the catastrophic incidence of offending, and to find a different pathway, is essential to interrupt the trajectory of sex offending.

Sexual violence has a catastrophic impact on victims. I have treated victims of sexual violence, many of whom have struggled with post-traumatic difficulties for decades after being subjected to the acts of a person who did not care, or believe in, the importance of seeking consent.

The difficulties victims live with are pernicious; sexual violence can decimate a person’s capacity to trust, to experience safety in the world and in their body, and to be close and intimate with other people.

When sexual violence involves significant betrayal by someone who is trusted, as seen in the behaviour Pelicot inflicted on his former wife, the difficulties are amplified manifold.

Even as we laud Gisele Pelicot’s courage in turning away from the shame she rightfully refuses to hold, it’s essential to take this opportunity to truly understand the nature of those who perpetrated the sexual offences against her, and prevent other women from suffering in the same manner.

Terms like “rape culture” are broad in their appeal, but we need far more granular detail to understand why a person offends sexually. With that, we can determine how to reduce the risk of re-offending, or even prevent it altogether.

Dr Ahona Guha is a clinical and forensic psychologist, trauma expert and author based in Melbourne.

If you or anyone you know needs help, call Lifeline on 13 11 14, Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636, or the National Sexual Assault, Domestic Family Violence Counselling Service on 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732).

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