Study Finds 50% of Teen Boys Believe Silence Is Consent

Not all men — just half

Licensed from

WARNING: disturbing content.

In 2011, ’s life became a nightmare, though she wouldn’t know it for nearly a decade. Her husband, Dominique Pelicot, had begun drugging her with sedatives and anti-anxiety medication. While she lay in an unconscious state, Dominique allegedly invited strangers from online chatrooms to rape her.

Between 2011 and 2020, over 50 men, aged 26 to 74, with professions ranging from fire officer to journalist, participated in these assaults. Some claimed they knew they were committing rape. Others said they thought it was consensual.

Gisèle, now 72, recently in court how she had never given consent — “not for a single second.” She described years of unexplained memory lapses and gynecological issues but did not know about the assaults until police uncovered images on her husband’s computer.

As the trial unfolds, Gisèle faces her husband’s defense lawyers’ insinuations that perhaps the men had made an “error of judgment” — that they thought she was drunk, asleep, or even playing along. One lawyer even suggested, “There’s rape, and there’s rape,” a distinction Gisèle swiftly shut down: “No, there are no different types of rape. Rape is rape.”