I write this in emotional turmoil. I am struggling, like women the world over, to comprehend the mass rape of Gisèle Pelicot, drugged into unconsciousness by her husband and sexually violated by him and dozens of other men at her home in Mazan. This, for almost a decade.
Is it a coincidence that Mazan is the location where I set my recently published novel, X in Provence? Absolutely. Yet it’s deeply unsettling. I chose Mazan as the backdrop for my book because I knew this village very well, had frequently walked its cobblestoned streets, had bought bread in its boulangerie, eaten in its pizzerias and stopped for a drink at the Café du Siècle on Avenue de l’Europe. I’d exchanged greetings with more than a few locals – the “mister every man”. There was another factor that dictated my choice. I discovered that the infamous Marquis de Sade had spent chunks of time in this same spot, for his family had possessed a chateau in Mazan, remnants of which I saw standing (though it’s now been turned into a ritzy boutique hotel). The Marquis’s father was actually born in Mazan. It therefore seemed a fitting location for a book depicting a murky sexual underbelly to Provence and the story of a woman tethered to a toxic, raging narcissist and her plunge into self-loathing.
I draw no parallels and make no comparisons between my fiction story and the real-life happenings in Mazan. My Mazan is portrayed with creative license. But I do say this: X in Provence paints a portrait of the beastliness behind the beauty that is so enrapturing to the eye. As I wrote in the novel: “…behind all those pretty facades, among such stunning scenery and surface perfections, there coursed a putrefaction of sexual one-upmanship that sought to harm. Provence wasn’t supposed to be like that.” That sexual one-upmanship forms the fodder for the “other” Provence that I sought to bring to light, a contrast to the usual portrayal of the place. I was no bystander in this delve into an X-rated demimonde but a fully cognizant participant.
X in Provence takes place in the pre-Internet era, before online apps became the modus operandi for dating and random sex; when the infrastructure catering to the erotic, sensual and sexual consisted of venues such as partner-swapping clubs (clubs échangistes), mixed saunas and nude beaches scattered along the coastline – venues that are still in vogue today. These are arguably even more popular and easier to pinpoint with the plethora of apps catering to all appetites. I was surprised (perhaps being English) by the casualness about going to a swingers’ club, hanging out at a steamy sauna or holding sexual “soireées” with invitees at home, at least among a certain swathe of people.
The juxtaposition of beauty and boredom in the countryside was a revelation. In the context of Provence, not only was sex a key subject among camarades at every social occasion, along with food, wine and fetes, it was not infrequently a prelude to action. The chitchat about sex was often accompanied by hungry stares and flagrant flirting – including in plain sight and hearing of wronged partners and those at risk of being cuckolded. Behind the insouciant I caught glimpses of the troubled.
The point is that manipulation and the abuse of women have many faces. The spectrum is long and often not apparent to the unsuspecting . In X in Provence, under the eaves of an old Mazan mas surrounded by lush vineyards, the artful manipulator crosses the line into artful emotional abuser. The protagonist is crushed under the weight of her lover’s abuse, her eyes fully open – she sees but cannot leave. It is but one example of the mechanisms of power wielded by narcissists and others with controlling tendencies. We should be aware that such people tend to be master manipulators and home in on their partner’s weaknesses in order to erode and destroy their self-esteem.
Back to Mazan and the reality: I pray that the sexual horrors that took place there have a silver lining, that the court case now unfolding in Avignon – which madame Pelicot requested be made public – leads to sea changes: not just strengthened laws on sexual assault in France, but to men actually being held accountable for every such act and yes, to a shift in their very bones, their very consciousness that they may finally comprehend: Our bodies are not commodities. By exposing the crimes against her using her own name, this brave woman is standing up to those who would downplay and outright deny the sickening sexual violence she was subjected to – right out of the machoistic playbook of non est mea culpa. Tomes will be written about her ordeal and rightly so. May the record be set in stone.
