Content Warning: This post contains discussions of sexual violence, including drugs and *ape. Reader discretion is advised.
The
definition of safe and healthy relationship is built around consent, alongside
several other things. When I read about Gisele Pelicot, apart from admiring her
bravery, it made me question the world we are living in, the relationships we share,
the crime stories which never seems to cease but above all, how much the phase,
‘fact is stranger than fiction’ remains relevant.
Coming
back to Gisele Pelicot, she was the woman in France who discovered that her husband
had been drugging her and *aping her while she was sleeping for over a decade and
she was clueless. What made this case more horrifying was that she discovered
that he had been inviting other men, total strangers, into their home to also *ape
her while she was unconscious and for years, she had no idea what was happening
to her. She was of the belief that she was in a loving marriage and trusted the
man she was with, this is so heart wrecking. Overtime, she began to experience
memory lapses and weight loss and confusion. Considering these symptoms, she
was led to believe that she was developing Alzheimer’s. It was only in 2021,
when her (then) husband was arrested for filming women up their skirts in a supermarket,
the truth was revealed. The police searched through his digital devices, they
uncovered a library of abuse. There were 20k photographs of Gisele that were
carefully catalogued over the years. Investigators believe that not only was
she assaulted by her own husband, but between 2011 and 2020, she was assaulted by
at least 72 men. Her husband Dominique Pelicot
had been drugging her with sleeping pills and anti-anxiety medications and then
recording those assaults and saving those videos. When the case went to trail
in 2024, the verdict was, 46 men were found guilty of rape, two attempted *ape
and two sexual assaults. Dominique, the husband received a maximum sentence of
20 years in prison, may he rot in the jail and in hell and beyond hell for
eternity.
Hold on! It is just the tip of the iceberg.
The
Korean Nth room incident was horrifying but it was not the season finale.
CNN
did a month’s long investigation, which revealed that there is a much larger,
more hidden ecosystem built around several abuse of unconscious partner/ women
that exist online, and one of those websites apparently received 62 million
hits in one month. Why it is termed as ‘Online *ape Academy’? These websites
act like an academy where men go to learn the details of how to drug and *ape
their sleeping partners, they specifically learn what drug (some of it can be purchased
online, they are typically odorless and tasteless), how much drug, how it has
be done, how to check if she is unconscious, how to make sure it cannot be
traced (maybe digitally or manually), how to make sure she doesn’t remember
anything, how to record, how to post it online (some perpetrators live stream
the act), how to sell it online, how to coach other people on how to get it
done. As obvious, payments are often made in cryptocurrency making it very
difficult to track. Looks like such online community builds a sense of brotherhood
where abuse is encouraged, lauded, and celebrated and their ultimate test of
such learning is the execution of such hideous acts?
Statistics
show abuse and violence against women are perpetuated mostly by person known to
them. Psychologists are of the opinion that such acts spring out not from a
sense of desire but by sense of entitlement and control. There can be numerous
debates and discussions on how to end this cycle, or at least prevent its amplification.
When technological advancement meet twisted minds the result is often dangerous,
no say on that, but I find a small ray of hope when men too start speaking
against such abuses with an assurance and assertiveness that they are not and
will never be one of abusers.
