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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   28021 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 9, 2026

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This Valentine's Day, I am thinking about why the Pelicot rape case has received so little attention, sparked so little discussion. This is the case of a French man, Dominique Pelicot, who invited 72 men to rape his drugged wife, Gisèle Pelicot, over the course of nine years. The trial took place in 2024 (all accused found guilty), but it surfaced in the NYT again this week. I could not find a single mention of it in on this site.

Yes, it's been reported in every media outlet. No, I'm not claiming it's been hidden or suppressed. But the case has no political relevance. It hasn't generated heated discussion. No one seems to care or talk about it that much. Why? Here are my speculations.

You could claim that this was an isolated incident that has no implications for society in general, that one specific forum enabled the perpetrators to find each other. But these men were mostly from nearby towns, within 50km, from all walks of life.

I think it's simpler to just say that some large fraction of men would jump at the opportunity to have sex with an unconscious woman if there were no consequences. This is the nature of men. We have known this since the beginning of time. Most adults understand this already. The vast majority of men know this, because some part of them has the same urge, or if not, they are familiar with the corrupting force of male sexuality in general, and this particular manifestation is hardly a surprise. Women largely know this force, too, because they have been told of it, or because they have been targeted by it, though they sometimes pretend not to know.

Men aren't eager to discuss this particular case because it is unflattering to the male sex. Furthermore, it doesn't seem to inspire moral outrage among men. It doesn't trigger tribal instincts - race was not a factor, for instance. And a couple of the elements that make rape viscerally repugnant are absent in this case. For one, she was unconscious during the rapes. In some sense, apart from the drugging, the violation was merely psychological - the knowledge post facto of the strangers' assault, and the knowledge of her husband's betrayal - and I have the sense that many men simply struggle to empathize with psychological harms to women. Men can empathize with other men, but in this case the would-be secondary victim, her husband, wanted to cuck himself. "So be it," seems to be the unsaid reaction.

It's harder for me to say why women aren't eager to bring this up as ammunition in the gender wars. Doesn't this vindicate the radical feminists? I see it discussed in forums dominated by women, but not much beyond that, and even there not particularly passionately. Maybe one factor is that Gisèle Pelicot herself apparently didn't believe her daughter's claims of abuses at the hands of her husband, and so isn't the perfect victim. But perhaps the whole thing is just unpleasant and depressing. It seems to shatter the possibility of love, and of the dignity of women among men. She thought he was a good husband.

And perhaps it's simply that there is nothing to fight about. There is no toxoplasma, no scissor statement. No surprises at the trial. No one even cares to come out and repeat the defense of the accused, that they thought she had consented. No one wants to argue. There is nothing to be done. Castrate all men? Don't have the bad luck of marrying a depraved cuck? Conservatives have nothing to say. Do liberals have something to say? If so, I haven't heard it either.

I think the starting point is to ask which rape/sexual assault cases DO get a lot of attention. And the answer to that is simple. When the person accused is Jeffrey Epstein; Harvey Weinstein; members of the Duke Lacrosse team; etc. In other words, if the alleged perpetrator is coded as being part of the white elite.

Stranger rapes with a "perfect victim" (roughly, middle-class and hot) get a lot of attention locally when they happen regardless of the perp.

Nobody gives a flying flamingo about date rapes or rapes of chavettes unless they happen to reinforce a partisan narrative. The Weinstein and Epstein cases have the legs they do because "blue-state white male 'billionaire'* elites are depraved sex pests" can be used to reinforce both partisan narratives, and the (((perps))) having an obvious ethnic skew that powerful people don't want to talk about gives you double super conspiracy theory memeness.

* Epstein liked people to think he was a billionaire, and is widely referred to as one by his left-wing political opponents, but his net worth peaked in the mid three figures. Weinstein never claimed to be a billionaire, and his net worth peaked in the low three figures. This is part of a general problem talking about the super-rich, which is that the level of wealth needed to qualify is between $30 and $100 million depending on who you ask, and neither "millionaire" nor "billionaire" is a useful description at that level. The midwit leftists complaining about "billionaires" absolutely mean to include Weinstein and Epstein in the group they are complaining about.

Stranger rapes with a "perfect victim" (roughly, middle-class and hot) get a lot of attention locally when they happen regardless of the perp.

I basically agree with this. Kind of a variant on Missing White Woman Syndrome.

Nobody gives a flying flamingo about date rapes or rapes of chavettes unless they happen to reinforce a partisan narrative. The Weinstein and Epstein cases have the legs they do because "blue-state white male 'billionaire'* elites are depraved sex pests" can be used to reinforce both partisan narratives, and the (((perps))) having an obvious ethnic skew that powerful people don't want to talk about gives you double super conspiracy theory memeness.

I basically agree with this as well. Although I think that if Weinstein or Epstein had been non-Jewish, the amount of mainstream attention would have been roughly the same. It's basically the fact that they are coded as elites, particularly white elites IMO.

I think they would have got the same amount of attention in the first few months after coming out. But it is the "outsider" (including fake outsiders like Trump when he was in opposition) conspiracy theory-type interest in Epstein which makes the scandal run for years, and I can see that "was he Mossad" is a huge part of that.

Although I think that if Weinstein or Epstein had been non-Jewish, the amount of mainstream attention would have been roughly the same. It's basically the fact that they are coded as elites, particularly white elites IMO.

I think the Jewishness means the Hard-Right pounds the drum harder, but if they were non-Jewish then the NGO-Left would pound the drum harder, so in the end it kinda balances out, yeah.

I think the NGO-left is lousy with 'anti-Zionist' anti-semites for whom "Mossad is sponsoring paedophiles" is catnip in the same way "Jewish elites are sponsoring paedophiles" is catnip for right-populist anti-semites.

I think the NGO-left is lousy with 'anti-Zionist' anti-semites for whom "Mossad is sponsoring paedophiles" is catnip in the same way "Jewish elites are sponsoring paedophiles" is catnip for right-populist anti-semites.

I would have to agree with this, except that far-right anti-semites seem to get pretty excited about "anti-Zionism" as well.

AFAIK Bill Cosby was canceled for sex stuff and he's black. Is he "coded as a white elite" too? Or are "elite-coded" and "white elite-coded" synonymous?

Is he "coded as a white elite" too?

They considered him a race traitor.

AFAIK Bill Cosby was canceled for sex stuff and he's black. Is he "coded as a white elite" too? Or are "elite-coded" and "white elite-coded" synonymous?

Probably you could come up with a formula for the amount of attention an allegation of sexual misbehavior will receive based on various factors including the perceived race, social status, notoriety, etc. of the alleged wrongdoer, the alleged victim, etc.

I'm certainly not claiming that alleged sex crimes by non-white celebrities receive no attention. If someone is well known, then a serious accusation of wrongdoing against that person is going to get attention. That being said, I'm pretty sure that if Bill Cosby had been white, the allegations against him would have gotten much more attention.

OTOH, Cosby was conservative coded. On the other hand, Diddy. On the gripping hand, Tyson.

his net worth peaked in the low three figures

Is this a typo or do you mean +10,002,000 with obligations of -10,000,000? Which indeed is very different from a man with $2000 in his account, although we don't have good ways to talk about this.

I was puzzled by this. I think he meant deca-millionaire. Maybe it’s a British thing?

Low/mid three figure millions. Online guesses of peak net worth are 300-500 million for Epstein and 150-250 million for Weinstein.

Dropping the last six figures when talking about client net worth/deal size is a financial professional shibboleth. (Even relatively successful financial professionals are not rich enough to do this when talking about our own money). I should probably stop doing it on the Motte.

I’ve heard “he is worth 100 or 150” without giving the base but I’ve never heard anyone mention figures while dropping the first six.

I probably overgeneralise some of these things. I am still trying to promote "metre" as a colloquial term for 10^9 Euros.

[Joke explanation for non-traders - "yard" is a corruption of "milliard" which was used in old-school British English to refer to 10^9, with "billion" being 10^12. (This convention is still used in French and German.) So a "yard" was traderspeak for 10^9 currency units, assumed USD unless otherwise stated]

You may give the wrong impression, yes :) Though very interesting to know!

Celebrities get more attention than regular people? Shocker.

I'd never heard of Epstein prior to his arrest. "Celebrity" is a bit of a reach.

Not quite the right word, perhaps. Still, is elites being more scrutinized by the public eye such an oddity?

No, absolutely not, provided the scrutiny is actually warranted (the Duke lacrosse case being a prominent example in which it was not).

Duke lacrosse bros weren’t celebrities

Duke lacrosse bros weren’t celebrities

Agreed. And if the accused individuals in the France case had been French bankers that nobody had ever heard of before, you can bet the case would have provoked a lot more outrage.

Even Jeffrey Epstein and Harvey Weinstein weren't celebrities in the sense that they were relatively unknown before the accusations came out against them; the main reason they are well known is the accusations themselves.

Even Jeffrey Epstein and Harvey Weinstein weren't celebrities

To echo @FiveHourMarathon: other than Harvey Weinstein, the only single individuals more frequently thanked in Oscar acceptance speeches were Steven Spielberg and God. If that's not a celebrity, I don't know what is.

If you asked the average Joe or Jane in early 2000s who Harvey Weinstein was I bet few would know (do ordinary people pay attention to thank you’s in an Oscar speech — do they even pay attention to the Oscar’s?).

If you showed a picture even less would’ve been able to tell you who that was.

If you asked them who Clooney was, a majority would be able to tell you.

do they even pay attention to the Oscar’s?

They don't now, but this is a fairly recent phenomenon. I'm old enough to remember people being outraged when The Dark Knight didn't receive a Best Picture nomination, a decision which was so controversial that it was the primary impetus for increasing the number of nominees from 5 to 10. In absolute terms, the best ratings the Oscars ever received was in 1998, when 57 million Americans (i.e. 20% of the country) tuned in. For comparison, in the same year the Seinfeld season finale saw 76 million viewers (27% of the country) tune in. Until very recently the Oscars were just as much as part of the Zeitgeist as any major sports tournament and would make for just as reliable water-cooler conversation.

Separately from the Oscars thing, The Weinstein Company produced some of the highest-grossing films of the twenty-first century, meaning millions of people would have seen the name "Weinstein" immediately before watching a film they enjoyed. That's bound to create name recognition and positive mental associations.

If you showed a picture even less would’ve been able to tell you who that was.

A noisy metric. People who work behind the camera are bound to be less facially recognisable than people who work in front of it, but that doesn't mean they aren't famous. A lot of people couldn't identify Walt Disney, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Alfred Hitchcock, James Cameron, Christopher Nolan, Peter Jackson etc. from their photos, but don't tell me these men aren't famous.

Sure people used to watch the Oscars (though still not most people). Someone ruining Weinstein in passing would not create widespread name recognition. Movies perhaps but even then how many people paid attention to that kind of thing?

Walt Disney was some what recognizable as he did shows etc as part of marketing. The other famous people were directors and people would go see movies due to directors. Pretty rare to go see a movie because of a producer.

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Harvey Weinstein was extremely well known before the accusations themselves.

Harvey Weinstein was extremely well known before the accusations themselves.

The average person had no idea who Harvey Weinstein was before the infamous article came out. But anyway, let's assume for the sake of argument that he was a celebrity. Certainly Reid Seligmann had not been a celebrity.

@ChickenOverlord

He was well known enough for his name and activities to be a punchline in 30 Rock and for his name and appearance and attitudes to be parodied in Entourage which I suppose were higher concept than like, NCIS or Friends but not exactly esoteric knowledge.

He was well known enough for his name and activities to be a punchline in 30 Rock and for his name and appearance and attitudes to be parodied in Entourage which I suppose were higher concept than like, NCIS or Friends but not exactly esoteric knowledge.

Obviously it's a matter of semantics, but I would say that these things do not make him a celebrity, although I would agree he was well known within his industry. In any event, I think the example of Reade Seligmann and Colin Finnerty shows that the "celebrity" hypothesis lacks explanatory power. Unless of course you strategically re-define the word "celebrity"

The stuff in 30 Rock was inside baseball, nothing to do with the average person.

He was well known in the movie industry and by film nerds and by the sorts of people who actually pay attention to movie credits (guilty as charged), but he wasn't really well known amongst the general public.

Yes, the "Duke lacrosse bros" weren't themselves celebrities, but also nobody knows or refers to them as individuals merely as pseudo-anonymous representatives of an elite University.

But that’s conflating things—elite and celebrity. The two do not always go hand in hand.

Yes, the "Duke lacrosse bros" weren't themselves celebrities, but also nobody knows or refers to them as individuals merely as pseudo-anonymous representatives of an elite University.

I think the key word here is "elite." The woke media were super excited about the idea of elite white frat-boy types gang-raping a black woman. It totally fit their Narrative.

Duke University is a celebrity because it is an elite university. Representatives of Duke University become celebrities by proxy in their representative role, which is why they are always referred to as "member of the Duke lacrosse team" rather than individually named.

Duke University is a celebrity because it is an elite university. Representatives of Duke University become celebrities by proxy in their representative role, which is why they are always referred to as "member of the Duke lacrosse team" rather than individually named.

What would you say about a university which is not elite, but still very well known. For example, Alabama or Texas A & M. Would you say those qualify as "celebrities" under your definition?

Yes, by definition (emphasis mine):

The state or fact of being well known, widely discussed, or publicly esteemed.

Being an elite institution is merely a way to become a celebrity, and likely in my mind the reason Duke University is.

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Exactly. I think your point is correct and conflating elite with celebrity misses a key point.

You could’ve also mentioned the UVA scandal.

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