They line up in front of a courthouse in southeastern France, from morning to evening, and have gathered in the thousands in cities across the country. They hold signs reading, “one rape every six minutes,” “not all men but always a man,” and “giving in is not consenting.”
They chant: “Rapist we see you, victim we believe you.”
Women across France are rallying in support of Gisèle Pelicot, a 72-year-old reluctant icon whose husband is on trial in the city of Avignon for systematically drugging her and inviting dozens of men, 50 of whom are now his co-defendants, into their home to rape her over nearly a decade.
The shocking case has sparked what many women in France call a long-overdue reckoning over “rape culture” and systemic sexism in the way the judicial system handles sexual violence.
My mom molested me when I was a child. Not always a man, and fuck that bitch for trying to pretend it’s so.
Yeah, a uni I went to had a sexual assault course everyone had to take, and the thing that stuck out was that the statistics on women were horrible, but the statistics on men being raped was not statistically far behind. It was something awful like three men in a classroom of 30 would have been victims of rape. On average.
The worst part is that a friend of a friend was actually held down and raped in a hotel by three people in the hallway. But he was so scared of being perceived as gay, he refused to talk to the police, his family, or get PEP for possible STD exposure. Men don’t feel like they can come forward for male rape because they will be perceived as gay, and they won’t report being raped by women because it’s seen as being weak. Fucking horrible, and then the rapists get away and continually abuse people until someone finally breaks the chain. :(
Since you are in a thread that’s about a women who has been victimized for 10 years by her own husband who she trusted and believed loved her, and raped by 50 plus men at his hand, I want to say, that many, many females also don’t come forward because they know they won’t be believed. They will also be perceived as weak, or whatever excuse rape apologists give. They asked for it. They dressed like a slut. They were walking too late at night alone. They drank too much and passed out which made them fair game.
It happened to my sister, my brother, my mother, my friends, it’s happened to me, it’s happened to about 13 other females off the top of my head that I know throughout my life.
It isn’t only because a male will be perceived as gay that they don’t come forward. That’s a byproduct of homophobia. They don’t come forward for many of the same reasons females don’t come forward. They believe it’s their fault., and they don’t think other people will believe them. And also possibly they want to try to forget it ever happened, because it’s so traumatic.
It’s because other people don’t want to see the truth, and that truth is that human beings are for the most part garbage. We want to pretend this awful crap doesn’t happen on a regular basis but it does. It’s not an outlier or abnormal, it’s a fact of life for nearly most women and some men. It would be nice if no one could experience this.
She was likely raped (by a male, perhaps her father?) much like you were by your mother. It’s very callous to refer to her as a bitch because a sign. Women aren’t attending these protests because they find them fun. They are victims like you.
So if I make a sign that says “not all women but always a woman” because so far, both times I’ve been raped are by women, there wouldn’t be an uproar about how it’s sexist and excludes woman victims of male abusers?
Why should I be cast aside, lumped in with the “always a man” crowd as an abuser, while the women who abused me are lauded as victims? Why not just care about all victims of abuse? Why do we say “well you’re only 4% so you don’t matter” or “sit down and shut up we’re not talking about you” whenever male victims just want to be fucking included in the conversation and not forgotten about for once, and by the group that should be recognizing us as compatriots in our trauma at that?
She doesn’t have to put us down to make herself feel better and we’re rightfully angry that it happened again.
It’s just exactly like the people who saw “black lives matter” and thought they meant only black lives matter. They see the sign saying “not all men but always men” and ignored the first part and focused on the second part. Then proceeded to ignore the actual subject of the article (you know, the woman who was continually raped without her knowledge or consent for over 10 years by 50 or possibly more men and the fact that the defense is arguing that “maybe she secretly knew and liked it”). And are completely focused on being outraged by the sign.