AVIGNON, France — They are, on the face of it, the most ordinary of men. Yet they’re all on trial charged with rape. Fathers, grandfathers, husbands, workers and retirees — 50 in all — accused of taking turns on the drugged and inert body of Gisèle Pelicot while her husband recorded the horror for his swelling private video library.
The harrowing and unprecedented trial in France is exposing how pornography, chatrooms and men’s disdain for or hazy understanding of consent is fueling rape culture. The horror isn’t simply that Dominique Pelicot, in his own words, arranged for men to rape his wife, it’s that he also had no…
