The devastating case of Gisele Pelicot, a French woman who was raped unconscious by dozens of strange men recruited by her husband for almost a decade, has sparked a storm of protest on social media. Women, regardless of their relationship status, should be screened for sexually transmitted diseases.
The 72-year-old woman told the court in Avignon, France, how her ex-husband Dominique Pelicot, 71, secretly drugged her and arranged for more than 80 strangers to rape her over nine years, from 2011 to 2020. Dominique admitted to the mass rape and asked for forgiveness, while 50 of the accused rapists are also on trial.
Gisele said she sought medical help after experiencing a wide range of worrying symptoms, including gynecological problems, hair loss and, most troubling for her, memory loss.
She feared she was developing Alzheimer’s and even went to a specialist at her husband’s encouragement. Instead, the memory loss was caused by her husband spiking drugs in her drinks.
As for the gynecological symptoms, many of the men who raped her did not use condoms. An HIV-positive man allegedly raped her six times. She did not contract HIV, but was later diagnosed with no fewer than four sexually transmitted diseases.
“They saw me as a rag doll, like a garbage bag,” Gisele testified.
Angered by the horrific stories surrounding Pelicot’s trial, social media influencer Jennifer Lee posted a now-viral TikTok warning women to get tested for STDs regularly, regardless of their relationship status, using her own experience as a warning.
“The Gisele Pelicot case should be a reminder to every woman to get tested regularly. It doesn’t matter if you’re in a committed relationship. The same thing happened to me,” she says in the video, which has been liked more than 43,000 times.
The 30-year-old Seattle resident said The Independent that she had fallen “madly in love” with an Australian man she met at a hostel while on holiday in Banff in December 2019. They reconnected in early 2023 and after a brief period of long-distance dating, they decided to become exclusive and went on a romantic trip to Vancouver in April 2023.
Months later, still going strong, Lee flew to Australia to visit him in June. When they tried to have sex, Lee knew something was wrong. It was “so painful I felt like I was being ripped open from the inside… like shards of glass in my vagina,” she recalled.
Lee recalled asking him before they slept together in Vancouver if he had been tested for STDs; he replied that he was “clean,” according to a police report. But the first night she arrived in Australia, she couldn’t sleep, collapsed in pain, bled profusely — and regretted not asking for more proof.
Lee is “paranoid” about avoiding sexually transmitted diseases and says she normally requires her partners to show her a “printout from their doctor’s office with their negative test results” — but this one time she didn’t “because I was so in love with him.”
The next day, her boyfriend took her to a doctor who, Lee recalled, insisted she didn’t need an STD test because she was in a monogamous relationship. The doctor concluded she was either having menstrual pain or an infection from sex and advised her to return in a while, since the pain had started the night before.
Her boyfriend then dropped her off at his house before going on an “errand,” the police report said. He returned with bad news, Lee said, telling her that “I apparently wasn’t clean,” the report added. Lee subsequently tested positive for two STDs: chlamydia and Mycoplasma genitalium. The latter is caused by a bacteria and can manifest as bleeding between periods, pain or bleeding after sex, a burning sensation when urinating and discharge, the CDC said.
“So I was sick for two months without knowing it,” she said.
Lee was given a course of antibiotics, but she had been infected for so long that she ended up in the hospital. When she was finally released, her body had finally defeated the infection, but other devastating symptoms lingered, leaving her in a wheelchair.
Lee wrote in the police report that she had developed supraventricular tachycardia, a type of heart rhythm disorder, as a result of the long-term infections. It wasn’t until March — nine months after she contracted the STDs — that she was able to walk unassisted again, even for just 10 minutes, Lee said.
Lee isn’t alone. Her TikTok has made many others reflect on their terrible health issues after finding out they had an STD late in life, without getting tested because they were in a monogamous relationship.
“I didn’t find out until I was very pregnant,” one TikToker wrote of her late-term diagnosis. “It nearly killed me and my daughter and left her disabled for life.”
Another wrote: “My ex fiancé also gave me two and now I am infertile because I went into a festering and then I was misdiagnosed and treated seven times for a urinary tract infection.”
Yet another noted that she found out when she was pregnant and had a “tough pregnancy.” We almost died. He was born [premature.]”
Others commented on their doctors’ opinions on testing. The CDC recommends women get tested for gonorrhea and chlamydia annually, but some TikTokers say some doctors are reluctant to test if the patient is in a monogamous relationship.
“Mine [doctor] “She told me I didn’t need an STD test because I was in a committed relationship, but I told her I wanted to be safe than sorry,” one user said.
One user said that doctors “always looked at her strangely” when she asked for an STD test while in a long-term monogamous relationship.
But someone said her gynecologist insists her patients get tested, using the mantra, “You may trust your husband, but I don’t.”
Lee agreed, saying, “It should be the responsibility of your doctors to make sure this is done on a regular basis.”
Lee broke up with her boyfriend in November.
But nearly a year later, she’s not quite done with him. She reported the incident to police in Australia, saying she only consented to have sex with him because “she assumed he had been tested for an STD and was cured,” the report said.
Pelicot’s case, which is still ongoing, “has torn apart my ability to continue walking in silence,” Lee said, leading her to speak publicly about her experiences (including that she is an abuse survivor) and file the report with police.
“The level of violation that happened to her is much greater than what happened to me. But I can’t look at that and not draw the same conclusions,” she continued. “This case has shaken me to my core.”
And she urged people to get tested for STDs — and that medical professionals should push for it. “Every woman, regardless of their relationship status, should be tested,” Lee said.