You think you understand how the world works. You think you can spot the bad guys—villains with scars living in creepy dungeons. You are optimizing for the wrong search terms. Real evil doesn't look like a monster. Real evil looks like your neighbor. It looks like the guy who fixes your car. It looks like the husband sleeping next to you.

Take a look at **Gisèle Pelicot**. If you haven't heard about her, you have been living under a rock. She is the French woman at the center of the horrific **Mazan rape case**, whose husband, **Dominique Pelicot**, spent ten years drugging her. He utilized **chemical submission**—putting pills in her dinner—waiting until she was unconscious, and then inviting men over to rape her. Not one man. Not two. Dozens.

Now, with the release of the **Gisèle Pelicot memoir**, she is talking to the press. Everyone is clapping and calling her brave. And sure, she is tough. She stood in a courtroom and looked those guys in the eye. That takes guts. But let’s be real for a second. Let’s cut through the noise and look at what this story actually tells us about humanity. It tells us that we are garbage.

Everyone wants to focus on the husband. Dominique. The mastermind. Yeah, he is a piece of trash. He turned his marriage into a crime scene. But he is just one sick guy. The world has always had sick guys. He isn't the scary part of this story.

The scary part is the other men. The "guests."

Think about this. The husband went online and found strangers. He told them, "Come over and use my wife while she sleeps." And what did these strangers do? Did they call the police? Did they say, "Hey, that is disgusting"? Did they report him?

No. They drove to a nice house in a nice town. They walked in the front door. And they did exactly what he asked.

Who were these guys? That is the punchline. They weren't escaped convicts. They weren't hiding in the shadows. They were normal. They were firemen. They were journalists. They were prison guards. They were dads, husbands, and neighbors. They were the guys you say hello to at the supermarket. They were the guys coaching your kid's soccer team.

That is what should keep you awake at night. These men put on a mask every single day. They smiled at their wives, patted their dogs, and went to work. And then, when nobody was looking, they became demons. They saw a chance to hurt a woman who couldn't fight back, and they took it. They didn't hesitate.

This destroys the whole idea of civilization. We like to pretend that we live in a safe society. We have laws. We have police. We have "values." It is all a joke. It is paint on a rotting piece of wood. The laws didn't stop this. The neighbors didn't notice anything for ten years. Ten years! A woman was being destroyed in her own bedroom for a decade, and the world just kept spinning.

So now we have the memoir. We have the interviews. The media loves it. They are drooling over it. They pretend they care about justice. They pretend they are shocked. "Oh, how could this happen?" they ask with fake tears in their eyes.

Give me a break. The media doesn't care about Gisèle. They care about the clicks. They care about the views. Human misery is the best-selling product on the planet. We consume it like popcorn. We read the gritty details, we shake our heads, and then we go back to scrolling through cat videos. It is entertainment for us. We are vultures circling a carcass, pretending we are mourning.

And what about trust? This story kills trust dead. If a woman can't trust her husband of fifty years, who can you trust? The answer is nobody. Marriage is supposed to be the ultimate promise. "Till death do us part." It turns out that promise is just words. It is just air. You are alone. Even when you are holding someone's hand, you are alone.

The most depressing part is that nothing will change. We will read the book. We will have a few debates on TV about "toxic masculinity" or whatever buzzword is popular this week. The politicians will make speeches. And then we will forget.

Meanwhile, the next monster is already out there. He isn't hiding. He is probably standing in line behind you at the coffee shop. He looks totally normal. He is polite. He holds the door for you. And deep down, he is just waiting for his turn to show you who he really is.

Humanity isn't fixing itself. We aren't getting better. We are just getting better at hiding the rot. Gisèle Pelicot found that out the hard way. The rest of us are just lucky we haven't found out yet.

***

### References & Fact-Check * **Original Report**: [Gisèle Pelicot Speaks (The New York Times)](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/15/world/gisele-pelicot-bangladesh-china-nuclear.html) – *Source for memoir release and interview details.* * **Event Context**: The **Mazan rape case** (Affaire Pelicot) involves the trial of Dominique Pelicot and 50 other men accused of aggravated rape and chemical submission. * **Statistical Relevance**: This case has sparked significant debate regarding **sexual violence in France** and the prevalence of drug-facilitated assault.