Parents and Teachers, take Gisèle Pelicot with you into Sex Education
You will likely know Gisèle's name from the news in 2024, when the trial was dominating with the horrors of what her husband, Dominique, did, drugging her for nearly a decade and inviting men to assault her. This never becomes easier to digest. But what I hadn't anticipated was how much of this story belongs to the good people. And how much those good people can teach us.
In my work with young people, I talk constantly about healthy relationships, red flags, masculinity and misogyny, and how to keep yourself and your friends safe. Gisèle's story gave me new language for almost every conversation I have in schools.
The security guard and what "don't be a bystander" actually looks like
The part of the book that I haven’t stopped talking or thinking about was the security guard.
Dominique was caught filming up women's skirts in a supermarket. What I had not known, is that he had been caught doing the same thing ten to fifteen years earlier. At that time, he received a small fine and nothing more. Not even his wife was alerted. It was not treated as a serious matter. It was not seen as a signal of something potentially darker - a gateway crime.
We have feminism to thank for the progress that has been made in understanding and naming violence against women and girls. In not accepting it. In recognising that low-level behaviours are not trivial. That both victims and perpetrators need to be supported, otherwise crimes repeat and escalate.
This security guard, a man, not only reported what he saw but encouraged the three women to report it too. He understood that if they didn't all push together, nothing would change. What he could not have known, was the huge underworld he was about to unveil.
At the end of the book, Gisèle goes back five years later to thank him. During that time, he had been forced into hiding; the dark web criminals had found out who he was and his life was at risk. what struck me was not only Gisèle's unwavering capacity to hold everyone around her in her thoughts, but also this man's courage and his deep, fundamental respect for women.
He is, for me, the embodiment of "don't be that guy", and also of "be that guy." The one who does the right thing even when it is easier not to. Even when others have not.
For the classroom
When we teach bystander intervention, we often describe it in the abstract. This story makes it concrete. One man reported something he saw. That single act eventually led to justice for a decade of abuse.
Ask students: what does it take to be that person? What gets in the way?
Consent education is ongoing
During the trial, nearly all the rapists relied on the same non-guilty defense: they believed Gisèle was consenting. Some claimed they thought she was awake while others said they believed she had consented to being drugged.
When asked what rape was, many of the men described something involving force, being tied up, being physically overpowered.
Lawyers had to educate the defendants in court on what consent actually means: voluntary, conscious, enthusiastic. Then they asked again, did Gisèle display any signs of someone who was enjoying what was happening?
“No”.
This is not only a failure of those individual men. This is a failure of sex education at a societal level. We have taught people that rape means force, struggle, a stranger. We have not taught them that silence is not consent. That stillness is not consent. That someone who cannot speak for themselves cannot consent. Most importantly, if you are not sure if it is consent – assume that it is not. Your pleasure is not more important than someone’s safety.
For the classroom
There should be a thousand ways to say no, and only one, very simple way, to say yes. Consent is enthusiastic, awake, and ongoing.
Ask students: what are ways to say no and what are things that can mean yes?
Keep your friends close
Gisèle had a friend she described like a sister. This friend, at some point, tried to warn her - not about the crimes, which she had no idea about, but about Dominique's behaviour: the flirting and affairs. Gisèle cut the friendship off, and that friendship stayed severed for more than two decades.
Gisèle reflects on this in the book honestly. She knows that even if she had stayed and listened, she probably would not have left him. But had she kept that friendship, she would have had someone who saw Dominique without her rose-tinted glasses. Someone she could have talked to about her reoccurring health issues or someone who might eventually have become suspicious.
The isolation was not the cause of what happened to her. But it removed a layer of support.
In my work with young people, particularly girls, my most consistent message is this: your friends are your strongest asset. It is so much harder to see clearly when you are in love. The people who care for you and are not in love with your partner can see things you might miss. Keep them close. Trust them.
For the classroom
Healthy relationships don't isolate. Talk about the warning signs that a partner is trying to cut someone off from their support network.
Ask students: what would you do if a friend seemed to be pulling away from everyone they loved?
We don’t owe anyone the ‘perfect victim’
Gisèle's daughter, Caroline, had a completely different response to the trial than her mother, to the point that their relationship was put on pause. Their reactions, their coping mechanisms, their public faces were all different, and all of it is valid.
Our current justice system does not protect those who have been abused. It requires them to evidence their trauma and perform their suffering in a very specific way; to be hurt but not angry, to be traumatize but not disheveled, to be elegant but not clever - because ‘why didn't you figure it out sooner’? You can’t be too composed, - ‘or did it really affect you’? Not too anything. Just the perfect victim.
These are myths, misconceptions, and they are dangerous. They hand abusers an excuse.
I have wondered, and I think it is worth wondering, whether this trial would have received the same global attention if Gisèle had been a different kind of woman. A black woman, an angry woman, a less attractive woman... I do not have an answers. But the question matters.
For the classroom
There is no correct way to respond to abuse. Survivors can be angry, quiet, funny, composed, chaotic, or all of these at once. When we teach young people to spot abuse in others, and in themselves, we must be clear that how someone reacts does not tell us whether something happened.
Ask students: How can we support a friend who has disclosed abuse?
The good men do exist, and they matter so, so much.
The most infamous parts of this case was the volume. Dominique found so, so many men, in such a small area, who were willing to commit one of the most heinous crimes imaginable. None of them reported the online forum. None of them reported him. Thousands of men saw the material and did not do the right thing.
But Gisèle's book refuses to leave it there. Because there was one, the security guard, who did the right thing. Then another, the police officer who broke the news to Gisèle and was honest about how deeply it affected him. Then two more, the male lawyers who represented her with complete dignity and were there beside her when she had to watch the videos for the first time. And then more: family, friends, a new partner, police officers who immediately knew what had to be done and who traumatised themselves in doing it. And eventually, men all over the world who said: ‘they do not represent us’.
Although it was men who committed these crimes, it was also men who gave Gisèle justice. Her lawyers. The security guard. The police force who treated her with respect.
We always need more of the good guys. But they do exist. And we need to say so.
For the classroom
There are already good men in our communities. We should say: this is what it looks like. We can place our hope in them multiplying and becoming the people who raise the next generation.
Ask students: what makes a positive role model and can we name any?
Believe them
I have learnt that it is better to believe every woman. The cost of lying about something like this, the ordeal of a rape trial, the public exposure, the way people look at you, it is all not worth lying for. The false accusation narrative is statistically rare and disproportionately loud. The reality is that most women who have been abused never report it at all.
So, I choose to believe. And I would encourage anyone working with young people to say so explicitly. Tell them: ‘if you come to me, I will believe you’.
If this resonated with you
I'd also recommend Know My Name by Chanel Miller, another extraordinary memoir by a powerful, resilient woman who refused to disappear.
I wish only peace and happiness for Gisèle, her family and friends, the security guard, the lawyers, the police officers and psychologists, Chanel Miller, and every person who has survived abuse - with a guilty verdict, or without one. I believe you.
My sex education lessons
I offer interactive sex-education based workshops for secondary school age young people. I can offer a range of topics including healthy relationships, consent, and masculinity and misogyny. All curricula can be tailored to your young people’s needs, ages, and maturity.
Get in touch if this is something your provision needs!
