genuine courage on our own behalf

an action and hoped for consequence for the rest of us

The unfathomable courage of Gisèle Pelicot is unquestionably the story of this year rather than an election, climate change, or anything else. A woman so emotionally as well as physically abused by her husband and fifty-one men he solicited to rape her is a tale that would have been a challenge for any novelist to craft, even in our current era of perversion and greed. Her willingness to stand publicly as legal authorities pursued an open and fair trial that led to a conviction of each and everyone stands as a tribute to one French woman’s unflinching determination to face evil while alerting to the world to its existence.

I only know of her from the stories that appeared beginning last summer. Her husband of decades drugged her so deeply that she began believing she was suffering profound dementia. Instead he was engineering a form of unconscionable voyeurism as random men he had solicited raped her over years.

Pelicot’s public testimony to hold her rapists accountable took more guts than I can imagine. Rape victims in any country rarely come forward because the public scrutiny of the victim’s behavior during trials is usually harsh. Plus, the internal questions, from what I have read, invariably lead to her searching to explain “what did I do to encourage this?” Yet Pelicot not only had to grapple with her own misunderstanding of what she had viewed as a secure, happy marriage while seeing the faces of these dozens of men who violated her.

As if that were not enough, she consented to the court playing the surreptitious videos her now ex maintained from the attacks. How does one feel when one sees 51 men attack your body when you’re in such a virtual coma induced from ten times the normal dosage of sleeping medicine?

We all recoil from this case (and I am no different as I definitely do as well) because of its hideous nature.

Yet, we see in Ms. Pelicot the audacity and resilience of the human spirit. She is exhibiting the desire to go forward in life, not to be entirely trapped in as bad a past as a victim can be. I can’t imagine she has easy days all of the time but she obviously weighed what was the best response on her part before pursuing this public excoriation of the rapists.

In this season of hope, I want to thank Ms. Pelicot for her courage against the depravation she experienced. She has shown all of us that the human spirit can renew. She will, I sadly admit, never escape either the history nor the horror of perverse betrayal of a type I hope none of ever confront.

It’s that boldness to confront the bad that hopefully will spur others to address evil in its too many forms. Any of us who has a daughter or are the child of a woman never wants the scars of emotional or physical abuse to mar a life but we also are reluctant to discuss that it happens a great deal. But, Pelicot’s actins may free others—of any background—to speak against cruel, banal activities of all sorts.

But Gisèle Pelicot offers us more broadly an example when we face seemingly unthinkable pain or decisions. She refused to be a victim without any response. She refused to go quietly into the night as if she had no power over future telling of this nightmare.

That example might be crucial to some in its own way. Her actions could indeed have wide-ranging consequences. If nothing else, the Pelicot case shows it’s difficult to exaggerate how poorly humans can treat one another, particularly the vulnerable due to whatever circumstances.

Thank you for your time today as I know this is an unpleasant topic to discuss. I welcome anyone’s thoughts, challenges, or musings about Ms. Pelicot’s case or anything else. If you find it valuable, please feel to circulate it.

Thank you for reading Actions. Thanks especially, from the bottom of my heart, to those who subscribe because we put our money on what we care about.

Life is replete, even in the holiday season, with vile as well as glorious behaviors. I wish you only the latter experiences.

Be well and be safe. FIN