December 18, 2024

Photo: MAEVA DESTOMBES/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images

The crime at the center of the Mazan rape case is almost too big to fathom: Over the course of nearly a decade, a man drugged his wife and invited at least 70 strangers to rape her in her own bed. The woman, 72-year-old Gisèle Pelicot, found out about the operation when police showed her the more than 20,000 videos and images saved to her now-ex-husband Dominique’s devices. Again and again, the same scene replayed: A rotating cast of men performed sex acts on her inert body as she lay sprawled and unconscious on her bed, incapacitated by the super-dose of lorazepam that Dominique mixed into her evening ice cream. As side effects from the drugs set in, Gisèle became convinced she was developing Alzheimer’s or a brain tumor — and Dominique took care of her. He drove her to neurological specialists, accompanied her to the gynecologist, stood by for an MRI. He was the love of her life, she said, her “perfect husband,” someone she “trusted entirely.” She never imagined him capable of such “immeasurable” betrayal until she saw it for herself.

Photo-Illustration: by The Cut; Photo: Getty Images

By Madame Clairevoyant

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We're getting an early Christmas gift from the House Ethics Committee. Imagine thinking you're going to space for eight days only to end up stranded for nine months. There's a trailer for Traitors season 3. This woman really just wants to see the world, huh? Spy Kids has been added to the National Film Registry. These are the library books New Yorkers checked out this year. And at least we don't have to worry about murder hornets anymore.

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A biweekly newsletter interrogating modern family life, written by Kathryn Jezer-Morton.