French man accused of drugging his wife and inviting men to rape her

Some of them are still claiming that they thought it was roleplay. Do you really think that if someone called the police and said they were looking for roleplay but had come across someone who seemed to be doing it for real that the police would arrest that man instead of the actual rapists??

Not to mention that they could have called anonymously and given the name of the website and the IDs being used.

Not if you think it's roleplay, so calling the subforum "without her knowledge" would be part of that - as long as you don't actually rape the woman. If when you discover it's not intended to be roleplay (because he starts to discuss what amount of sedative she'll have taken for instance, or the "rules" he put in place to avoid waking her, like them heating their hands in hot water beforehand) then no, there's nothing illegal.

The men who raped her can't claim not to know because they followed those rules, or were part of the discussion about what drugs she'd been given.

Of course it's not all men, and I've never said it was.

FWIW I'm married and have two grown up sons and I think (hope!) they would never do anything of the sort.

But I am genuinely shocked to the core by this, and it's true I'm struggling to know how women are supposed to be able to continue to assume the best of men in general in light of it.

Not because I think it's all men, or even most men. But it's clearly far more men than I had ever imagined, (there was a similar thing in South Korea recently too, of men selling nude photos of their daughters to other men) so yes I'm actually rather shaken by it.

As I have said at least twice now, I'm talking about the men who did not rape her.

Pelicot, the husband, said that about 3 men in every 10 who contacted him withdrew when they learned that she was really unconscious. He also said that none of those who did come to the house left at that stage. They all went through with it.

So 30% (but men whose names we don't know, not any of the 51 in court) knew of a crime being planned, decided not to participate in it, and went their merry way. None of them called the police. None of those men committed a crime except the crime of non denunciation of a crime. But if they'd gone to the police, they'd have been in the clear.

I'd honestly say Id find it surprising if there were lots of men living normal lives who are eager to rape an unconscious woman as long as the husband is OK with it

Completely agree. I find it unbelievable. And yet there were at least 70 such. Well, of the 50 who are in court, I think five already have a criminal conviction for either DV or sexual abuse, so maybe not quite 70.

The other 45 out of 50 do appear to be "lots of men living normal lives" though. Most had partners and a range of jobs.

And then there are the 20+ who were filmed but who couldn't be identified. I think we can assume that most of those are also unknown to the police, as, well, the police couldn't work out who they were, despite their best efforts.

The 50 names have been released by the court (I won't bother posting them unless someone asks) - someone who lives locally posted that she recognised several of the names and actually knew one or two personally.