« We are not actresses, we are prey » – Liberation

That evening, Emilie (1) returns from the laundromat. The 32 -year -old young woman likes well -kept home and clean environments. She settles in the sofa, her little dog by her side, uses a glass of coca, takes inspiration, then a cigarette, with a right head, as if to give herself courage. With the release of Under our eyes (2), a collective work where fifteen women testify to the sexual violence suffered on shooting of pornographic films, the interviews, she feels herself « Morally tired », dreaded to tell this story once again, even if « It has nothing to do with you »she said, considerate. Emilie is one of the 42 complainants of the French Bukkake affair, the story she tells is that of long hours of filmed rape. But as she talks, about her fast and clear flow, scrolls an entire life of violence.

She made this pretty two-hen of Ile-de-France a refuge, plants everywhere, neat decoration, candles. She arrived there only a month ago, after having fled domestic violence. Sexual violence began very early at the age of 8: one day, his mistress of CE2 detects in his words the possibility of paternal incest. A trial followed, a conviction, and, when she was 11 years old, the suicide of the father. It is at the same age as his sex life begins, with a young man of 19, What the law was not yet condemned : a report « Wanted, I would say ». A litany of sexist and sexual violence then enamels her life, to the SMS of a police officer with whom she files a complaint for a phone flight and who then writes to her to tell her that he had found her cute and would like to see her again.

Very few men have not been violent with her. With her sad and piercing gaze, she tries to explain it, comes back to this persistent feeling of guilt. « Perhaps in my childhood, I suffered dramas that led me to that day because men, predators, saw on my face that I was already a victim and that they could do what they wanted. »

Emilie dates « Start of renewal » In the year 2020, when his phone rings, unknown number; She believes in an intimidation of her attackers, but it is a gendarme, who found her identity during a search in what will become the French Bukkake affair. « Finally, someone was able to believe me when I said that what I suffered was rape. » So far, she had felt herself « Too shameful » To file a complaint. With this agent, she traces a whole predation system. « We were a game and they waited for their moment to be able to hunt us. » THE « moment » In his case was, this move to Occitania with a cousin who evaporated after a few months, leaving him the burden of the rent. Emilie was then 26 years old.

Precarious, she has been in contact on social networks for weeks with Julien D., advancing masked under the pseudonym of Axelle Vercoutre, the rebate of what she calls « The cartel ». She spins the metaphor: “It’s trafficking. They track us down, bother us, violate us. They offer the people of the site to come and rape us; When they rent Airbnb apartments, they offer owners to rape us. It’s like people who sell drugs, weapons. It’s a network. « 

Under the guise of friendship, « Axelle Vercoutre » offers a solution to its financial galleys: the shooting of porn videos, broadcast only in Canada. Emilie poses her conditions, refuses certain practices. Nothing will be respected. From October 7 to 10, 2018, Pascal O., Mathieu L., Célian V. dragging it with an airbnb in Paris to a dismal house in the countryside, up to Bois de Boulogne, impose on him for hours and in a meeting of extreme, unprotected sexual acts. Slapped, strangled, the young woman is sodomized by force.

She will return there a second time on October 31, 2018. « I’m ashamed, but I couldn’t pay the rent, the races. » Seven years later, Emilie still drowns in guilt. “I find it hard to accept to have been trapped. It’s as if I was stupid, however, I don’t have the feeling of being. ” Devoid of self-esteem, she now clings to these words, « Surviving », « Fighting », Disseminated during his legal fight, drinks the encouragement of his lawyer, the comfort of the other civil parties, his « complaint sisters ». She developed her own speech and hangs up. “We are not actresses, we are prey, victims. I did not get up one day saying to myself: «  » « Here, I’ll do porn. ” We do it because we have no choice or because we are forced, through different stratagems.»»

Shortly after the second « shooting » (the victims refute this term, the respondents claimed it), a man contacted her on a dating site with the pseudonym used by his executioners. She understands that images have largely exceeded Canada’s borders. These violence pursue her everywhere, at work where she is the subject of corridor noise; in a nightclub where a man asks him if he can take a photo with her, « As if I were a porn star » ; in the metro where she feels « Insisting, perverse looks ». Since then, she no longer takes public transport, and bought a car, her first good, she is proud of it.

On a daily basis, she describes herself as « sociable », Talk about her animals as well as her children – « What girls », she wants to specify. She loves to receive her friends, « Take care of them ». She does not know why she has all this love to give, that she cannot give herself. “Doing yourself good through therapies, relaxation is not innate. We tend to think that we do not deserve it. ” She dreams of escaping on a trip « Each month »find refuge in a house by the sea « With the forest just behind». A place « Really, where she would feel good, very small in this world ». Her « Desire for stability »of a « Normal family life » with « Six children ”, Everything she was private, she analyzes, is struck with her trauma. « With the approach approaching, I say to myself: » Is it worth having children to leave them in this world of monsters, and that potentially, they fall on my monsters to me? «  »

Emilie may hope that testifying will help « The company to position itself with us, and not against us », She fears the prospect of the court. « Even if we are very well surrounded, we have detractors. We are already judged. At the time of the trial, it will be ten times worse. ” In the meantime, she does what she can to move forward, not think about it. « I try to survive in my daily life. » With her complaint sisters, they sometimes see each other, some have woven links, and Emilie even hosted one of them a few days before the release of the book. « It feels good, she concedes, But that reminds us how weakened we are, shot down. We may have a smile, we know that the slightest thing can trigger us. ”

That day, it will be necessary to tell the court the horror of these days of 2018, « Talking about things that hurt, relive the torture scenes ”. The following life, of course, is done step by step, with its advances, its declines, its therapy sessions not always honored, « It takes time before having the courage to go rebuild ». In the meantime, she tries to « Do not think about it » And then, the day from the trial, she knows: « I will go with my little legs. »

(1) The first name has been changed.

(2) Under our eyes. Stories of pornographic violencecollective, editions du Seuil, 304 pp., 22 euros.