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Seems to me that the right kind of childhood trauma would accomplish this pretty handily. Enough horrifying experiences at the hands of a caregiver during the right developmental window, and a kid's brain is extremely capable of constructing a protective narrative that runs "this didn't happen"/ "I feel weird but this was OK, ____ loves me, so clearly there's nothing wrong"/"since ___ is my only protector, actually they are great and I am fine."
Everyone's lived reality is heavily filtered through their existing stock of life narratives, so it's plausible that a traumatized person with this background could go on to (a) feel most comfortable/ most attracted to other horrifying abusers, and (b) not consciously notice signs of additional abuse, or notice them but on some level be incapable of recognizing or acknowledging them. It's how women who were molested go on to serially date child molesters, and often don't consciously notice the signs that those men are also molesting their own kids.*
Pelicot's mom died when she was 9 and she went on to be raised by her military father. I haven't read her memoirs, but that history, while not dispositive, is also not a history that's inconsistent with suffering childhood abuse at the hands of a male caregiver at some point. During her marriage, even prior to the rapes, there were also many red flags that her husband was a deadbeat and a sexually dangerous man: convictions for assault and upskirt pictures, as I remember, and he didn't hold a steady job but launched a series of failed businesses while her salary supported the family. The fact that she stuck with him through all of that has to say something about what she'd been primed to see as normal in a relationship.
*This is also why I am unimpressed by people justifying sexual aggression/violence against women by quoting stats on the number of women who fantasize about these things. Repetition compulsion will make you seek out repeated encounters with the things you most fear and loathe, in a vain attempt to master them.
This would make it all add up for me. And adds an extra layer of tragedy to the whole affair.
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