Before the Pelicot rape scandal broke, Fabien, a 40-something married father of two, was learning about cases of sexual violence from afar, without any particular interest. "There was [Dominique Strauss-Kahn], a powerful potential presidential candidate capable of attacking a Black cleaning lady in a hotel. As for [Michel] Fourniret and Guy George [two serial killers who also raped their victims], the media system put them at the devil's table, and that suited us all," said the quality manager in the metal industry in Marseille.

Since the trial opened on September 2 at the criminal court in Avignon, every day of the hearing has been dissected live on social media and 24-hour news channels. This international media coverage was made possible by the fact that the trial was not held behind closed doors, and by the figure of the victim, Gisèle Pelicot, 71, whose dignity and courage are unanimously recognized. For Fabien, the normality of the profiles of the 51 defendants, 37 of whom are fathers, and the chilling nature of this case have shaken the "peace of mind behind which men hid until now."

For 10 years, Gisèle Pelicot was drugged by her husband, who raped her and had her raped while she was unconscious, on over 200 occasions, by strangers he recruited from the website Coco, while also filming these sordid crimes. The shockwaves also came from the defendants' insistence that they were not rapists. They were ordinary men – firefighters, lawyers, factory workers, truck drivers, journalists – aged 26 to 74. Our neighbors, our colleagues, our brothers.

"Knowing that these dozens of men live not far from me, it goes round and round in my head," said Fabien. "How can you say to yourself: 'Tonight, I'm going to fuck a woman who's been medicated by her husband, and then I'll go back to my life, the morning coffee with colleagues, football training, life with the missus?" The father wonders: Is this violence present in every man? The same question has been asked in the public debate. Some male voices in the media have portrayed the trial as not just that of Dominique Pelicot and the 50 co-defendants but as the first trial of masculinity as a system of domination, at a time when nine out of 10 women know their aggressors and 97% of sexual violence is committed by men, according to a 2021 report by the French National Institute for Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE).

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