For 10 years, Gisèle's husband invited countless strangers to rape her. Not one of them reported it.

Mazan is a little town nestled in the South of France. With a population of just over 6,000 people, it's the kind of place where you know your neighbours. A quaint and charming 'hidden gem' tucked into the heart of Provence.

But for years, some people in Mazan carried a sinister secret. For nearly a decade a man in their midst was offering up his wife of 50 years to be raped, allegedly by at least 72 different men more than 90 times. She was drugged and unconscious for all of it.

Most of her alleged attackers were locals, and yet not a single person raised the alarm. Not to Gisèle. Not to the police.

Dominique Pélicot is accused of crushing sleeping pills into his wife Gisèle's food and sexually assaulting her, admitting to welcoming others inside their home to do the same in a series of crimes that have shocked the world.

Gisele Pelicot, your bravery has caused a tidal wave across the world. pic.twitter.com/YlG5MzHQhN

— Lucy Brown (@lucymarionbrown) September 8, 2024

It started while they lived near Paris in 2011. Two years later, they moved to Mazan, where it continued for another seven.

A local councillor, a nurse, a journalist, a former police officer, a prison guard, a soldier, a firefighter, a truck driver and a civil servant are all among Gisèle's alleged rapists.

They were men within her community. Men who would have perhaps seen her out and about shopping and sipping coffee at a cafe. Men who might have nodded their head in greeting as she entered their shop or passed by their office.

It wasn't one of these men, but the police, who broke the unthinkable news to the now 71-year-old, after they started investigating her husband for filming up women's skirts at the local supermarket. They found a folder on a hard drive labelled 'abuses' that showed video and photo evidence of her body being violated.

Listen to The Quicky's coverage of the case here. Post continues below.

Her only sign something was wrong was cognitive decline and fatigue that she now knows was caused by being repeatedly drugged. Her hair was falling out, she was losing weight and she was getting unexplained STDs. This was all being orchestrated by a man who she loved and adored, and who she thought loved and adored her. The father to her three children who were also completely unaware of what their dad was doing to their mum inside their bedroom.

Not a single one of Gisele's abusers alerted the police, despite many of their defences in court being that they were "helping a couple live out their fantasies."

They were recruited on websites and chatrooms with titles like 'Without Her Knowing' where they'd have vile conversations with Dominique about what they planned to do to her.

French newspaper Libération obtained some of the quotes. They included questions like, "She has no idea?" to which Dominique would reply, "No, she puts it down to tiredness."

"You're like me. You're into rape mode," he reportedly wrote to one other interested party.

Not a single one of these men (many who claim they thought they were taking part in something consensual), thought the situation was 'off enough' to alert authorities. That's despite Dominique asking them to refrain from wearing aftershave and to warm their hands before touching Gisèle — all tactics to stop his drugged wife from regaining any semblance of consciousness.

The majority of these men have no prior criminal record. Many have wives and children.

There are 51 men on trial. So far 14 have confessed to aggravated rape, but not a single one felt bad enough in the moment about their actions to confess. To own up. To stop what they knew was continuing to happen.

There were three men who left the house without going through with the rape. Why didn't they call?

There were potentially thousands who saw the ads online and didn't think to alert anyone.

Gisèle recognised just one of the defendants stood in court. He had come to discuss cycling with her husband at their home, and she would occasionally see him around town.

"I saw him now and then in the bakery, I would say hello, I never thought he'd come and rape me," she said.

"Even an anonymous phone call could have saved my life," Gisèle added.

This is a story about bystanders as much as it is about an abusive and sinister husband.

We say "not all men" and we mean it. But why so many men? Why so many men in one small geographical area?

This is the stuff of nightmares for women. We're so often told that we exaggerate male violence; that men would be interested in partaking in this kind of behaviour. We're told to trust that the nurses and firefighters and bakers amongst us are safe and upstanding people.

So why so many men?

"We in the village knew nothing," Mazan Mayor Louis Bonnet told local media.

In the very next breath he uttered the words; "It is serious, but at the same time, no one has died. No child has been killed. It was the rape of a woman."

Another sucker-punch. Another blow for women. What a horribly ignorant and offensive thing to say.

This was not just the 'rape of a woman.' It was a decade long violation. By her husband. By her community. By rapists who took advantage of her body and her husband's cruelty.

Gisèle will never forget this. Neither will her children.

It is absolutely terrifying that such a wide network of men would willingly participate in something as horrific as this.

Who would actively choose to have sex with an unconscious woman, and use her like a "rag doll" in her own bed?

We know not all men. But please, tell us, why so many men?

Feature image: AAP.