My work is devoted to the book “Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town” by Jon Krakauer. It is devoted to the series of sexual rapes which happened at the University of Montana, in the town of Missoula. Missoula is an ordinary college town, which has a state university with its own football team, the Grizzlies. Between years 2008 and 2012 there were over 300 sexual assaults reported to the local police station. Most of these cases were settled by the university or local authority. The author of the book examines several cases more deeply and profoundly so to find out the character and motives of rapists and rape victims. The stories of five women, who were raped, are studied thoroughly and in many details so to bring the idea home to the reader. Another important part of the book is the football team, where several players were accused of sexual assault.
I have chosen three stories which I would like to discuss: the story about Allison Huguet and Beau Donaldson, described in Part One; the story of Kerry Barret and Zeke Adams, presented in Part Two, and the story of Cecilia Washburn and Jordan Johnson, described in Part Five.
The first story “Allison” tells us about two young people, Allison Huguet, who was attending Eastern Oregon University, and Beau Donaldson, a junior in a school football team, who were both studying in the University of Montana. They used to be very close friends since their childhood but never expressed any romantic feeling toward each other. Their relationships could be interpreted as those of a brother and a sister. However, Allison got raped by this person on September, 25, 2010, while she was sleeping in his couch. She didn’t go to the police for fifteen months and was suffering in silence, alone. The author underlines that it is one of typical behaviors chosen by rape victims – very few cases of sexual assault are reported to the police and investigated later. Later Allison got in depression and required medical treatment after this case. She attended a special centre in order to collect enough evidence against Beau, and she found this process very traumatic as well. Moreover, she learnt about a rumor that they had slept by mutual consent, which finally persuaded her to go to the police and make an official claim. For a long time she refused any medical help until she met Donaldson for the first time since their last meeting; it was a serious shock and a commotion for her. She hesitated for a long time whether to report the case to the police and discussed it with other people and specialists, but finally she collected the necessary evidence and reported about it to the police. Finally, Donaldson admitted what he had done and was sentenced for it. The case was reflected in many mass media and was widely discussed. The same chapter also covers another story of a girl, who claimed to be raped by four men while she was intoxicated. However, the authorities expressed very little desire to start the investigation (Krakauer, part one).
The story of Allison and Beau, and also the story of Kelsey Belnap and the four teammates have shocked me a bit. In the first case, I was rather surprised by the fact that these two people were rather like siblings and the girl thought they had never had any loving feelings towards each other. We know practically all thoughts of the victim rape but we know nothing about the rapist’s mind. We cannot admit that everything that the girl said was true and real. I am speaking not about the rape case itself, but about her other claims. Such young couples tend to have some personal intercourse when one of them isn’t willing to start the relationship and the other is just trying to conceal his/her feelings. Beau might have been in love with the young girl since his childhood and she could either not notice it all or (more realistically) deny any possibility of their relationships, which must have hurt the guy very much. However, neither of the possible variants can be used to justify the behavior of the young man. Besides, the girl trusted her friend for all her life, she has known him for a long time and felt safe near him. In these circumstances the rape seems even more cruel and evil than on any other case. In this situation I rather feel sorry with the girl but at the same time I respect Beau for acknowledging what he has done and accepting the punishment for this. As far as I know, he was later paroled. To my mind, it is a very logical and coherent continuation of the story, with a logical end, which, however, cost much pain and lost friendship.
As for the story of Kelsey Belnap, who reported to have been raped by four guys during some party as she was totally intoxicated and didn’t realize what was going on, I cannot say that I feel the same to her, as I feel to Allison. Frankly speaking, I can see a few personal mistakes which brought her to this finale. She went to some doubtful part where she knew very few guys and had only one friend with her, who had no interest in caring for her or protecting her. Furthermore, she consciously got drunk and probably got high, which obviously weakened her self-protecting abilities and exposed her to any person with evil goals. The result is quite evident and many people would have predicted it if they heard about her state and the situation. A person who gets intoxicated may expect any trouble to happen to him – car accident, murder, robbery, or rape. That’s why I wasn’t surprised by the girl’s behaviour afterwards, when she didn’t want anyone to know about it and didn’t consider the guys to be guilty in what has happened. However, we all understand that such treatment of a girl is unacceptable by any way.
The second story I would like to discuss is the one described in Part Two “Before a Law Sits a Gatekeeper”, about Kerry Barrett and Zeke Adams. They met in a pub called Sean Kelly’s on September 22, 2011. She is a UM senior and he is a UM athlete. They had a nice time, drinking a lot and fooling around, and finally she found herself in his apartment where she came by her own will. She at once stated that she wasn’t going to have sexual intercourse with him and he agreed on it. However, while making out, he tried to go too far and she decided to go home. Since it was pretty late, he suggested that she could sleep on his bed and nothing would happen between them until she wants it. She agreed to stay but felt that he was trying to make an intercourse with her at night as she was sleeping. She ran away from his place and called her parents. She decided to report the sexual assault at once, but appeared to be not so easy. It also appeared not so easy to start the investigation since the authorities were not sure whether this case will have any result. Moreover, during Zeke Adams’s interview the detective expressed pity towards him and felt sorry for him. Zeke also turned out to be very emotional, didn’t understand why he was accused, and denied any attempt to have sex with Kerry that night.
Besides, the chapter also tells us about the case of Kaitlynn Kelly, who reported to have been raped by Calvin Smith. She herself invited him to her room to have a sexual intercourse. But she changed the plans as soon as she learnt that her roommate was in the room, too. Despite her protest, he made some attempts and hurt her. She got her body inspected at the special centre but didn’t want to report the rape to the police, as previous girls. However, she changed her mind and decided to prosecute the guy but again faced the reluctance from the police and the prosecutors. The author devotes a large part of the part to the analysis of rapists and shares a fact that most rapists do not comprehend that they are actually raping by their actions (Krakauer, part two).
These two stories look for me absolutely different from those presented in the first part. As I can see, the girls invited the guys to their place or came to their place by their own will. They were also drunk but they realized what was going to them and were not so unconscious as the girl raped by four teammates. Their first steps indicate that they actually also want to do it and have nothing against sexual intercourse with this guy. But as soon as some obstacle appears or even if there is no one, they change their mind and leave the guys frustrated. It happened so that the guys were more willing and more convincing than the girls and decided to finish everything. On the other side, there was an agreement between Kerry Barrett and Zeke Adams, which the latter broke as soon as the girl fell asleep. In this case I would rather disapprove of the guy, since there was an agreement between the young people and the girl felt more or less safe.
As far as I know from my personal experience or from the stories of my friends and acquaintances, a reasonable girl would never stay with a guy tet-a-tet unless she is intending to have something with him this night. Otherwise she has many chances to have something bad with this guy, no matter how well she knows him. Besides, we see intoxication again, which enforces the chances of any person to get into hot water.
What has shocked me much more is the reluctance of official administration and the police to start the investigation, prove the guilt and punish the guilty. Statistics shows that most cases are hushed up and nobody is punished at the end, but for the victims who need much time afterwards to come round. Thus, in these two stories I have quite mixed feelings but still I feel sorry for both girls and the fact that the system against rape crimes is still so ineffective.
The last story that I would like to discuss is the one about Cecilia Washburn and Jordan Johnson, described in Part Five “Trial by Jury”. In 2012 Cecilia reported about the crime, and Jordan, a football team quarterback, got expelled from the university and tried. As reported by the rape victim, Cecilia, she invited him to watch a movie at her place. They had had some hint of romantic relationships previously but that evening, as was reported, Cecilia wasn’t going to have anything with Jordan. However, she allowed Jim some things while watching the movie but she refused to have sex after that. Jordan states that he didn’t protest and the intercourse was consensual. Afterwards, she felt as if she was raped and shared her fear with her roommate, Stephen Green. The girl felt broken after the accident and didn’t want either to tell anyone about it or report to the police about it. Finally she did it, but some prosecutors didn’t believe her and considered her actions as the attempt to draw attention and become, so-to-say, famous. The case went to the court and was covered in mass media, especially of Missoula. Jordan Johnson has defense lawyers David Paoli and Kirsten Pabst who held a complex investigation and did a very large work to defend their client. Practically the whole chapter is devoted to the trial in a very detailed narrative. Finally, the jury found the defendant not guilty. After that the guy was reinstated to the football team and received a compensation of $245,000 from the university. He also made some claims that his due process and civil rights were violated, that he became the subject of sexual discrimination (Krakauer, part five).
I’ve decided to choose this story since it has an unusual plot and a most unusual finale. As we have seen before, system failed to work in such cases and such matters were generally hushed up. In this story the system activated quite eagerly on the both sides – the prosecutors and the barristers tried their best to defend their clients and persuade the court to punish the guilty one or free the innocent. We cannot say for sure what the author’s ideas are – if he is for or against sentencing Johnson and whether he approves or disapproves of the system.
However, this case reminded me of a few cases which I heard of in past. They were also connected with the relationships between girls and boys and the situations which could be described as “rape”. In most cases girls didn’t do anything about it and continued living normally, admitting that they provoked the guys for it and fell victims to themselves. At the same time, there are many reports in mass media concerning raping when girls had literally to fight for their life and chastity and the outcomes were not so hopeful, as we would like them to be.
The book conveys a few interesting ideas about rape, rapists, and victims. For example, any person can turn out to be a rapist and later stated as the one by court. Even the closest and dearest people may strike a blow on you when you don’t expect it and even if you have been acquainted with each other for pretty long time. Moreover, in some cases girls and women can be also blamed for provoking indecent behavior by their indecent appearance and actions. Besides, women tend to change their mind on the spot and may first silently or non-verbally agree on the sexual intercourse, then try to halt it in the middle of the process, and later claim that they were raped. Besides, women are famous for their ambivalent nature and may say “no” meaning actually “yes” and if a man doesn’t guess, he turns into a criminal, being actually a slow-witted person. Another common fact, in most cases alcohol or drugs serve as accelerators for this process and excessive intoxication may turn into something that happened to Kelsey Belnap or something even worse. Here we should always remember to control ourselves no matter how good (or bad) we feel.
As for my personal reaction to this book, I have to admit that it was hard for me to come to any certain conclusion. Since the book contains interviews and stories told by only some participants or by some other person at all, I can see only one side of the argument and for sure, it makes me feel sympathy with the poor girls. Nevertheless, we shouldn’t discriminate men and take for granted that women are always right and are always victims. Because now it is really so. If a man claims about having been raped by a woman, it will be rather a funny story in the police, than a real case.
I have also made up some of my own conclusions while reading this book. First and foremost, control yourself in drugs consumption and if you are not sure that you can – either give it up or ask your good friend (better the same-gendered one) to look after you so that you could just drive home when you have drunk too much. I would advise it both to girls and guys. Moreover, remember that the world is much safer now but never let the guards down – try not to stay alone in unknown places and always have some kind of protection devices or at least a heavy thing to save your life. Then you will never become a part of a book like this.
Works Cited
Krakauer, J. (n.d.). Missoula: Rape and the justice system in a college town.
