Wyylde case: libertinage can never be an alibi for violence and rape

They were not libertines. Libertinage was their alibi

The expression is already circulating: “libertine rapes.” Yet these two words should never be linked.

A rape is not a libertine practice that went off the rails. It is not a party that became too intense, a fantasy pushed too far, or an experience whose limits were misunderstood. Rape is a crime. As soon as consent disappears, nothing libertine remains.

The case now under investigation is exceptionally serious. Nineteen men have been charged in a case involving six women. According to the information made public, some encounters may have been organized with participants recruited on Wyylde. Scenes now being examined as sexual violence were also allegedly filmed and, in some cases, livestreamed on the platform.

Justice will have to determine each person’s precise responsibility. The people under investigation benefit from the presumption of innocence until they are tried. That legal requirement does not, however, prevent us from measuring the seriousness of the accusations or from listening to the women who reported the facts.

Their voices must remain at the center of this case.

Free sexuality is never permanent consent

The women involved must not be judged on the basis of their private lives, their practices, or their presence on a libertine platform.

A woman may have accepted group experiences and then refused another encounter. She may consent to one practice and then ask for it to stop. She may agree to be watched without wanting to be touched, agree to a relationship without agreeing to be filmed, or authorize a recording without consenting to its distribution.

Consent cannot be inferred from a profile, an outfit, or a fantasy expressed earlier. It must be free, specific, and reversible. A yes spoken yesterday does not apply today. An agreement given to one person does not automatically extend to everyone else.

This distinction is essential, especially in environments where sexuality can be more visible, collective, or transgressive. Sexual freedom removes no rights. It does not make a person less credible when they denounce violence.

The question is never whether a woman was libertine, curious, experienced, or voluntarily present at the start of an evening. The only question is whether she freely consented to what was being imposed on her at that precise moment.

Libertinage cannot be used as a cover

If the accusations are confirmed, the men involved will not be able to present themselves as libertines who were simply practicing a more extreme sexuality than others.

Libertinage is based on the freedom of everyone present. It cannot exist under coercion, fear, pressure, exhaustion, or the inability to react.

The words “fantasy,” “sharing,” “submission,” or “letting go” cannot turn coercion into a consensual practice. A person who refuses to hear no, who takes advantage of someone’s inability to react, or who imposes a situation through pressure is not exploring a form of sexual freedom.

They are destroying it.

Libertinage was therefore not the cause of the reported facts. It would have been used as scenery, vocabulary, and perhaps an alibi to normalize behaviors that had nothing to do with it.

That is why talking about “libertine rapes” is dangerous. This expression risks presenting the crime as a natural drift of the milieu, when it is precisely its negation.

Do not condemn an entire milieu

This case will inevitably fuel prejudice against libertine, swinging, or simply curious people.

Yet women, men, couples, single people, and LGBT+ people live non-conventional sexuality every day while respecting their partners. Their practices may move away from dominant norms without being violent or degrading.

We do not define all couples by domestic violence. We do not reduce every party to the assaults that may occur there. In the same way, libertinage must not be reduced to the acts of a minority.

That does not mean this environment is naturally protected from violence. No space is.

Dangerous people can use Facebook, Instagram, X, dating apps, private messaging, clubs, or specialized platforms to approach victims and organize their acts. A social network does not create the desire to assault on its own.

Even without Wyylde, individuals determined to commit violence could have found other ways to meet and recruit participants.

But that reality is not enough to dismiss every question concerning the platform.

Wyylde is not the author of the crimes, but it must answer for its tools

In this case, Wyylde would not have served only as a first point of contact. According to the published information, the platform may have been used to recruit some participants, organize meetings, share content, and livestream scenes.

A separate investigation by the Paris prosecutor’s office must now determine what the company knew, what it could detect, and how it reacted.

It would be unfair to make Wyylde the author of the violence in place of the people suspected of organizing or committing it. The primary responsibility always belongs to those who impose the acts and to those who take part in them with full knowledge of the facts.

But a specialized adult-dating platform cannot present itself as merely a technical space with no particular responsibility either.

When a service offers events, intimate albums, and live broadcasts, it must anticipate specific risks: images published without authorization, people filmed without their knowledge, domestic coercion, visible violence, or misuse of tools to organize criminal acts.

Statements from former employees have raised serious questions about the resources devoted to moderation and the handling of certain alerts. Those claims must still be verified by the courts. They do, however, justify asking for precise answers.

How many people were actually monitoring the live streams? What instructions were given when someone seemed unconscious or in distress? Were reports kept and forwarded? At what point was management informed?

Asking these questions is not the same as declaring Wyylde guilty before the investigation is complete. It is a reminder that a company must assume the responsibilities that correspond to the services it provides.

Defending libertinage without looking away

The libertine community would be wrong to respond to this case only by saying that these men do not represent it.

They do not represent it. But that must not prevent reflection on the mechanisms that can allow predators to use the codes of sexual freedom to conceal coercion.

Defending libertinage does not mean protecting its image at all costs. It means listening to the people who report violence, excluding those who cross the line, and demanding genuinely protective procedures from platforms and venues alike.

It also means taking seriously a change in behavior, a person who freezes, stops responding, seems exhausted, or asks for the scene to stop. A lack of resistance is not consent. A serious doubt must lead to stopping, checking, and protecting—not continuing.

The priority today must go to the women who found the strength to speak out and to everyone who may have suffered violence under the guise of so-called libertine practices.

They should not have to bear the guilt of acts that were imposed on them. And an entire community should not have to bear the guilt of the men who may have twisted its codes.

Libertinage does not mean the absence of rules. On the contrary, it rests on an absolute requirement: the freedom of everyone present.

Without consent, there is no play, no fantasy, no libertinage.

There is violence.

#consent #sexualviolence #responsiblelibertinage #supportforvictims