Can a Statue Be the Victim of Sexual Assault?

"Can a statue be the victim of sexual assault?" The French Left seems to think so. Unlike the Left, the statue's owner retains his sanity!

From The European Conservative

By Hélène De Lauzun, PhD

Parisian feminists prefer wasting their energy defending the rights of a statue over preventing attacks on real women.

Can a statue be the victim of sexual assault? This is a very serious question that recently stirred up Parisians for several weeks. In the heart of Montmartre, the famous hill where artists and lovers of Paris have gathered for nearly two centuries, stands a bust of the Egyptian-born singer Dalida, known to the French for several immortal songs that have become part of the national musical heritage.

Like so many others, Dalida frequented Montmartre for many years and made it her home from 1962 until her death in 1987. She now rests for eternity in the Montmartre cemetery overlooking the hill.

On the small square that bears her name, a bust by the sculptor Aslan was erected in her honour in 1997, on the tenth anniversary of her death. Passersby and tourists brush against it and touch it. Tradition has it that she brings good luck in love. People take photos of themselves next to Dalida, smiling, while caressing her generous curves. The gesture is so frequent that the metal has changed colour, and the singer now seems to be wearing a strange golden bustier where the bronze has been polished and re-polished.

How many millions have touched her? Considering that Montmartre is one of the most popular tourist districts in Paris, the numbers are certainly staggering. That makes for a lot of culprits. Because it is indeed a crime to caress the star so voluptuously. And every crime calls for punishment.

Acrime: that is how Parisian Green Party politicians see it. Several of them have therefore taken up the issue at the Paris Council, explaining that allowing Dalida to be assaulted in this way was “a form of trivialization of non-consent and a symbol of the appropriation of women’s bodies in public spaces.” The Wikipedia entry on the Montmartre square has been duly amended to lecture us: “This lack of respect is symptomatic of a certain conception of women’s bodies,” the encyclopedia tells us in a stern tone.

Other statues around the world have suffered the same fate. Ask Saint Peter what he thinks, whose poor right foot has been rubbed for much longer than Dalida’s breasts. In the Parisian church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, where there is a statue of him, his foot shines brightly, carefully polished by tourists and pilgrims. On the 13th-century statue found in the nave of the basilica in Rome that bears his name, the toes have even disappeared from being rubbed so much.

To be precise, for the past ten years or so, it has been forbidden to polish the foot of the guardian of paradise, and pilgrims seeking to appease the one who will open the gates of heaven for them on Judgment Day are invited to address their supplications from afar and in their thoughts. The reason is quite simple to guess: a few more centuries of pilgrimage, and the foot will eventually disappear. A crippled Saint Peter would not look good, if we may say so.

In the case of Saint Peter, it is not a question of eroticism, but of common sense and the preservation of heritage. But let’s get back to Dalida: the problem concerning her is quite different. This time, it’s about sexism, street harassment, consent, and all those terrible things that the Left has invented to vent its negative energy on males (white, if possible), who provide them with some kind of rustproof culprits. In 2025, such scandals cannot be aired in public without retaliation. Since Dalida’s statue cannot file a complaint for sexual harassment, others are taking care of it. Fortunately, feminists exist to deal with this kind of complicated situation.

In a civilized world, all this might raise a gentle smile. In the world we live in, the energy expended by this handful of embittered city councillors to defend Dalida’s modesty is appalling. Every day in Paris, hundreds of women are followed, harassed, assaulted, and sometimes raped. They suffer in their flesh and blood, but the self-proclaimed representatives of women’s cause see it as more urgent to worry about a piece of bronze. Faced with the increase in daily assaults, they respond by stigmatizing a ‘feeling of crime’—allegedly fuelled by the ‘far right’—and shifting their fight to the supposed rights of a statue of a singer from the 1960s.

One can argue that the act of fondling Dalida’s breasts shows remarkably poor taste. There is no doubt about that. But then again, it is only a statue. What would be the response to this attack? Cover Dalida up? What a wonderful idea: feminists, after campaigning for the right to wear miniskirts and for sexual liberation now find themselves covering statues like those Iranians who thought it appropriate to cover ancient Roman statues. Our ancestors were not so prudish, delighting in decorating palaces and gardens with seductively curvy Venuses, without anyone finding fault with it.

Another solution: dismantle the statue and put it in storage. That would drastically solve the problem. Women in the closet: that pretty much sums up the result of sixty years of feminist struggle.

The final word goes to Orlando, Dalida’s brother and sole heir, who donated the statue to the city of Paris. Faced with what he described as the “ridiculous” nature of the controversy, he felt compelled to speak out. With a good deal of common sense, he believes that the gesture denounced by Parisian Greens is in no way disrespectful but rather expresses “affection and admiration.” He pointed out that nothing can be done without his consent regarding this poor statue, which has asked for nothing. He said he might be in favour of raising the statue’s pedestal. However, he specified that “this is the only change I will authorize. There is no question of putting up educational signs or fences,” he warned, considering that Dalida belongs to the public. “By prohibiting everything, we end up prohibiting nothing.”