The rape of Gisele Pelicot, a French woman who was unconscious by dozens of strange men hired by her husband over a decade, has sparked an outcry on social media urging women to check for sexually transmitted infections, regardless of their relationship status.
The 72-year-old woman told a court in Avignon, France, that her now 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 gang rape and begged forgiveness, while 50 of the suspected rapists are also on trial.
Gisele revealed that she sought medical help after experiencing a series of worrying symptoms, including gynecological issues, hair loss and, most worryingly for her, memory loss.
She feared she had Alzheimer’s and even saw a specialist at her husband’s urging. Instead, her memory loss was caused by him spiking her drinks.
As for gynecological symptoms, most of the men who raped her did not wear condoms. An HIV-positive man allegedly raped her six times. She did not contract HIV but was later diagnosed with at least four STDs.
“They were looking at me like a rag doll, like a garbage bag,” Gisele said.
Outraged by the horror stories surrounding the Pelicot case, social media influencer Jennifer Lee made a now-viral TikTok post urging women to get screened for sexually transmitted infections regularly, regardless of their relationship status, using her own experience as a cautionary tale.
“The Gisele Pelicot case should remind every single woman to get tested regularly. It doesn’t matter if you’re in a serious 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 native said: Independent She said she was “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, decided to go exclusive and went on a romantic trip to Vancouver in April 2023.
Still going strong months later, Lee flew to Australia to visit her that June. When they tried to have sex, Lee knew something was wrong. “It was so painful, it felt like I was being ripped apart from the inside… like there were pieces of glass in my vaginal canal,” she recalled.
Lee recalled asking him if he had been tested for STDs before they slept together in Vancouver; he said he was “clean,” according to a police report. But the first night she arrived in Australia, she found herself unable to sleep, unconscious in pain, bleeding profusely — and regretting not asking for more evidence.
Lee, who is “paranoid” about avoiding sexually transmitted infections, said she usually asks her partners to show her “a printout of their negative test result from their doctor’s office” but did not do so this time “because I was so in love with him”.
The next day, her boyfriend took her to a doctor, who Lee recalls insisting that she didn’t need an STD test because she was in a monogamous relationship. The doctor concluded that she was experiencing either period pain or inflammation from sex, and told her to come back in a while because the pain had started the night before.
According to the police report, her boyfriend later dropped her off at her house for “work.” Lee says he returned with bad news, telling her, “it turns out I’m not clean.” Lee later tested positive for two STDs: chlamydia and Mycoplasma genitalium. The latter is caused by a bacteria and can present as bleeding between periods, pain or bleeding after intercourse, a burning sensation during urination, and discharge, according to the CDC.
“So for two months, I was sick without even realizing it,” he said.
Lee was treated with antibiotics, but was infected for a long time and was eventually hospitalized. When he was finally released from hospital, his body had overcome the infection, but other devastating symptoms persisted, confining him to a wheelchair.
Lee wrote in his police report that he developed supraventricular tachycardia, a type of heart arrhythmia, as a result of the prolonged infections. Lee says it took until March, nine months after contracting the sexually transmitted disease, before he was able to walk without support again, if only for 10 minutes.
Lee isn’t alone. Her TikTok has led to many people commenting on the dire health consequences of finding out too late that they had contracted an STD because they were in a monogamous relationship and didn’t get tested.
“I didn’t find out until I was very pregnant,” one TikToker wrote about her delayed diagnosis. “It nearly killed me and my daughter and left her disabled for life.”
Another person wrote: “My ex also gave me two of these and now I am infertile because I got infected and was later misdiagnosed and treated for a UTI seven times.”
Another said she found out while she was pregnant and had a “difficult pregnancy.” “We almost died when he was born [premature.]”
Others cited their doctors’ views on testing. The CDC recommends women get tested for gonorrhea and chlamydia every year, but some doctors shy away from testing if a patient is in a monogamous relationship, according to some TikTok users.
“Mine [doctor] “She told me I didn’t need an STD test because I was in a serious relationship but I told her I’d rather be safe than sorry,” one user commented.
One user said doctors “always looked at her weird” when she asked for an STD screening while in a long-term monogamous relationship.
But one woman said her obstetrician insisted that his patients get tested and used the mantra: “You may trust your husband, but I don’t.”
Lee agreed, adding, “It should be the responsibility of your doctors to make sure this happens at regular intervals.”
Lee broke up with her boyfriend that November.
But almost a year later, she hasn’t completely ended things with him. She reported the incident to police in Australia, who said in the report that she agreed to have sex with him “because she was under the impression that he had been tested for sexually transmitted infections and came back clean.”
Lee said Pelicot’s ongoing case “has shattered my ability to continue to walk in silence” and have the opportunity to speak publicly about her experiences (including being a victim of abuse) and file reports with law enforcement.
“The level of violation that was done to her was much greater than what was done to me. But I can’t look at this and not relate,” he continued. “I am deeply appalled by this case.”
And she urged people to get tested for sexually transmitted infections, and for medical professionals to insist on the same. “Every woman should get tested, regardless of their relationship status,” Lee said.