Dominique Pélicot says he loved his wife, who after 50 years together was and is the love of his life. However, he supplied her with sleeping pills so that he and other men could abuse her. He boasted of being a good family man and husband, but recorded and photographed how these individuals (investigators have identified 50 out of 80) raped her while she was unconscious.
Could this man love his wife, as he claims, and do all of that to her? This is the great dilemma of the so-called Mazan rape case or Pélicot case, which has been on trial since last week, judging Dominique Pélicot and 50 other men for raping the wife of the former, Gisèle Pélicot. The psychiatrists and psychologists treating him have appeared this Monday in the second week of the trial to try to answer this question and others.
"It is one of the great enigmas of this case: how can two such opposite personalities coexist within the same individual," summarized his psychiatrist Paul Bensunssan. In the public sphere, Pélicot was an exemplary man: a good husband, father, and grandfather. In private, he was narcissistic, perverse, manipulative, with paraphilias, and above all, with an "absolute lack of empathy towards others," to the point of disregarding them to satisfy his sexual urges.
All experts have highlighted the existence of this dichotomy in the accused, emphasizing the lack of empathy as the most relevant: the inability to see others. The accused does not deny the facts, stating that if he had not been arrested, he would "continue doing it" and "has no pathology that prevents him from seeing reality," as pointed out by psychologist Mariane Douteau, in charge of his personality profile.
His psychiatrist listed all the paraphilias (sexual deviations) of the accused: he was a fetishist, voyeuristic, exhibitionist, had somnophilia (pleasure when the partner is asleep), and sadism: when "practices and words towards others seek to humiliate." Some, as she recalled, "are not crimes, but he has all the paraphilias I mentioned, and that is quite rare."
According to the expert, Pélicot presents "a pathological personality ranging from narcissism to paranoia, with a loss of moral sense, leading him to cross all boundaries and commit these perverse acts. Pleasure was above the love he felt for his wife or daughter," she said. "The modus operandi speaks of perversity." Referring to the fact that his "guests" had to enter stealthily, wash their hands, and not wear perfume to avoid waking her up, among other rituals.
"The lack of empathy is total," described the psychiatrist, noting it as "the biggest problem." "There is an absolute lack, at no point does he imagine or evoke what his environment may be experiencing. There is a contempt for others," said Douteau. "There is egocentrism in his discourse, I have not seen empathy or concern for the physical and psychological health of the victim," agreed another psychologist, Annabel Montaigne.
She described his psychosexual dynamics. The first time he drugged her was when they both lived in the Paris region, before moving to Mazan, in the south of the country. He raped her while she was unconscious. This is what experts have called "the inaugural experience." He could not stop. "There is an impulse and an acting out, in his fantasies, that is repeated, with a perverse relational logic, egocentrism, a tendency to consider the other as an object that can be manipulated. There is a drive to control, dominate the victim with the aim of achieving personal satisfaction."
Mariane Douteau mentioned his childhood to try to find answers: a dysfunctional family with a father described by the accused and his brother as "violent, jealous, rigid, with whom dialogue was impossible." When he was a child, he reported being raped by a nurse when he was hospitalized after a minor car accident.
His psychiatrist added: "Egocentrism is maximum: his needs surpass the barrier that love may represent." "If he were between 20 and 40 years old, I would consider his dangerousness very high," the expert responded to one of the lawyers' questions, who believes that "in this case, his age and health should be taken into account."
The couple is described by their surroundings as "merged and united." "He idealized her, said she was a saint," the experts repeated.
They had financial problems, mainly because "he spent a lot, lived beyond his means," borrowed from family and friends to maintain his lifestyle. His children and brother say he was a liar, did not accept contradiction, "was not physically violent, but hurt with words," detailed Douteau. He had "a dominating and patriarchal role in the family sphere."
They all explain his actions as a dissociation (a disorder that, in general, allows the existence of two identities). "There were two coexisting realities, he had an antagonistic personality: there is the character he wants to be and the one he is. Douteau gave an example: "In prison, he does not complain about the lack of freedom, but about the trial, which he says diminishes everything he has built, his family, and says that without this trial, everything would have continued fine: 'I would still be happy, and she too, everything would have continued the same way'."
"There is an expression of affection present in the intimate sphere, but in his sexual relationships, perverse impulses appear in which he perceives his wife as the object with which to satisfy himself," according to Montaigne. He was addicted to pornographic sites, a practice he started because, he says, his wife did not accept certain sexual practices. At the same time, he was "afraid of losing that family balance, the image of the good husband, father, and grandfather he had."
There is a question that the lawyers from different parties have repeated, with different formulations: Can he be sincere when he says he loves his wife? How can someone who claims to love another person do this to them? Is it compatible to be a good family man with such a lack of empathy? How do these two contradictions coexist?
"He is sincere when he talks about it, although in his case, there is a strong psychodependency on the object of love and all that implies: the social image and his own image. She was an object that satisfied his narcissism, essential to his balance. Love for him could be more of a dependency on a family environment than a deep feeling, but it is an unconscious process. It is this dissociation that has allowed him to maintain two contradictory and paradoxical functions."
Dominique Pélicot did not appear this Monday due to physical problems, according to his lawyers, but is expected to testify tomorrow. The defense of the other 50 accused has denounced the publication of their identities, stating that their presumption of innocence is being violated and have requested to stop using the word "rape" to refer to the practices they inflicted on the victim without her consent.
Pélicot himself, however, uses it in his conversations with the other accused. The 50 accused, except for one who is on the run, have been in the courtroom, most of them covered with masks or bowing their heads.