Ordinary Men: The Endemic Normativity of Rape

Over the course of ten years, Dominique Pelicot drugged and raped his wife, Gisele Pelicot, and solicited over 70 men to rape her unconscious body. This mass rape shocked the world; it was largely framed as acts of cultural “deviance.” This article proposes that this was not cultural deviance, but rather, a manifestation of culture. This article investigates and critiques the psycho-cultural nexus that incites ordinary men to commit rape. This investigation utilizes the lens of feminist psychoanalytic theory, developmental theory, and social critique. What is the psycho-cultural meaning of chemical submission, and the conversion of a living woman into a dead one? Finally, the article traces parallel phenomena as they occur in a male patient – female analyst dyad.