It is a little-known disorder which appeared in the Nantes courtroom for two days. Thursday evening, the Loire-Atlantique Assize Court found a 31-year-old man guilty of three rapes committed in Nantes between 2019 and 2021. Sentenced to a sentence of thirteen years in prison, the accused claimed a behavioral disorder to defend, reports West France.
Three women reported rape while they were asleep. Through his lawyer, the defendant mentioned sexomnia, a behavioral disorder generating sexual activity during sleep. Often related to sexual sleepwalking, this illness was used by the accused to explain his actions, which he partially admitted.
Dismissed by experts
According to West France, two experts studied the behavior of the accused, in particular via recordings of his sleep. After this work, neurologists excluded the hypothesis of a phenomenon of sexomnia. Victims and their lawyers have also brushed aside this idea and placed more emphasis on non-consent in relationships. Two of them reported acts of penetration while they were asleep, particularly after having clearly refused the sexual act. The Assize Court heard them and decided to sentence this former bartender to thirteen years in prison.
The disorder called sexomnia has sometimes been used by the courts to exonerate certain perpetrators of sexual assault. Last year, a photographer from Montreal had was declared “not criminally responsible”the judge considering that the accused “was suffering from mental disorders” when he committed his sexual assault.
In 2011, a man was also cleared by the court in Swansea, Wales, for sexomnia. An expert explained that this sexual sleepwalking “mainly affects men in deep sleep” and that it can lead to “any type of sexual activity and can last twenty or thirty minutes”.