Living With Men

Living with Men. Reflections on the Pelicot Trial. Manon Garcia This book is an account of the author’s experience of her attendance at the trial in Avignon of Dominque Pelicot and the 50 men accused of raping Gisele Pelicot. 50! Is that not an extraordinarily large number. Well no. As I read t…

Living with Men. Reflections on the Pelicot Trial. Manon Garcia This book is an account of the author’s experience of her attendance at the trial in Avignon of Dominque Pelicot and the 50 men accused of raping Gisele Pelicot. 50! Is that not an extraordinarily large number. Well no. As I read this book which is erudite, informative, compassionate and intellectually brilliant, I was aware of the hundreds and thousands of women across the globe who know this experience of being repeatedly raped by many different men and who will likely never speak of it. Manon Garcia addresses the ways in which rape culture can thrive in a world which for too long has been organised along patriarchal lines which silence women’s voices and favours the interests of men. She argues that it is this societal indulgence of the false notion of a male need for sexual gratification which made it possible for Gisele’s husband to drug her repeatedly over many years and arrange for horrible little men to come to their house to act out their nasty rape fantasies upon her unconscious body. As they did so he filmed these rapes and stored all the evidence carefully. The graphic descriptions of the visual imagery shown in court are absolutely revolting. Had he not created a library of evidence there would have been no trial. Rape usually takes place in circumstances where conclusive evidence cannot be gathered. A particularly interesting chapter for me as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist is ‘Ordinary Men’ in which Manon Garcia makes connections between the accused in the Pelicot rape trial and Hannah Arendt’s analysis of the trial of Adolph Reichmann, a leading figure in the Nazi administration responsible for the holocaust. He personally orchestrated the deaths of hundreds of Jews in concentration camps. This group of rather pathetic feckless rapists had something in common with the powerful Nazi murderer. In both cases the accused did not think they had done anything wrong and in court appeared to be somewhat baffled to find themselves in the dock accused of horrific crimes. Garcia discusses the inability of any of these men to ‘think’. She says that we do not hold to account the society in which such behaviour is tacitly tolerated by the absence of tackling it properly. I agree with Manon Garcia here but as I come from a psychoanalytic background I also think that we have to consider the capacity of humans to deny their own awareness of those aspects of self that do not serve their interests. This is an unconscious process so innocence can be protested very genuinely and easily. And we all do it. We are not born with a conscience or an ability to care about the opinions or the feelings of others. Very small toddlers are ruthless. They steal each others toys, hit one another, and scream when they cannot have their own way. They care not at all that their parents are exhausted. They do not, and cannot think about their impact on others. A conscience has to develop. It usually develops in the context of the home in which they live and is under way to a greater or lesser extent when children begin school. Helping one’s children to develop a conscience that is neither too harsh nor too soft is a complicated process that most parents get more or less right. It requires moment by moment judgements about how to draw the child’s attention to their own behaviour without embarrassing them too much or letting them get away with bad behaviour. If this sounds like an impossible task that’s because it is. Most parents persist with this task because they believe it is what their children need to learn to be able to function well in the future. Some parents do not seem to care that much. The chapter entitled “Incest” unpacks the ubiquity of incestous behaviour and attitudes in the Pelicot household and the early life of Dominique Pelicot and the other men on trial. There was also the injunction to never speak of this to anyone. This early, too early sexualisation of children along with the injunction to never ever speak of it, was a powerful distortion of caring respectful relationships, and served to make it almost impossible for them to be able learn to love another person without using them. If it is society’s task to address the question of men who rape and abuse women society must address the question of the emotional and psychological environment in which children grow. That is usually the home. Our prisons are full of men and women who have suffered trauma in early life. Many will have been subjected to early sexual and emotional abuse. Many are seriously psychiatrically ill. There is precious little attention given to any of this. We see in the media so many instances of ruthless aggressive and uncaring behaviour towards others. This book is about one incredibly brave woman who spoke out about her own horrific treatment and alerted us to the perils at large in our world. I highly recommend it.