Defending women victims of rape for over 20 years. Anne Bouillon, a criminal lawyer and outspoken feminist, recounted the "fight of [her] life" in a committed book, Affaire des Femmes. Une Vie à Plaider pour Elles ("Women's Affairs. A Life Advocating for Them," L'Iconoclaste, 296 pages, €21.90). There, based on real-life situations, she describes the different types of rape she has encountered, including the "opportunistic."
In your book, you establish a typology of rapes. What does it consist of?
Rape is the most ordinary of crimes. Our courts are full of them. In my practice, I have observed empirically that this crime can have different functions. Predatory rape, perpetrated by men who devise stratagems, reflects the usual stereotype of the deviant rapist, but it is far from being the most frequent pattern.
Re-appropriatory rape is much more common, and follows the same logic as femicide. It is perpetrated by a close contact, usually when the victim is in the process of escaping. Opportunistic rape, on the other hand, is carried out simply because the opportunity arises, a situation much more frequent than one might imagine.
Opportunistic rape has been mentioned as an explanation for the Mazan rapes. Under what circumstances have you observed it in your practice?
A recurring pattern is the rape of a woman who is asleep and has had too much to drink. In court, I frequently meet people who could be our neighbors or brothers and who have committed rape, saying it was "because she was there and I wanted to." It's the student, for example, who collapses onto a sofa where a girl has fallen asleep after a party.
He hadn't planned any strategy, but in the early hours of the morning, disinhibited through alcohol and a desire for sex, he raped this woman because she offered no resistance. In criminal court, he explained that he "didn't think it would bother her." He may not be aware of it, but he has the distorted perception that women's bodies are at his disposal, as long as he doesn't get caught.
Where does this perception come from?
The idea of the availability of women's bodies is the fruit of a legacy, that of a system of domination that continues to structure our society despite its development. Thinking that the rapist is a deviant is a facile line of reasoning that is contradicted every day in the courts. To pathologize or marginalize the figure of the rapist is an easy way to avoid the introspection needed to eradicate rape.
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