September 1

One question I had after reading chapter two had to do with the quote/excerpt that Krakauer had chosen for the beginning of the part. On the first page of chapter two he includes a quote from an article in the Atlantic where a woman writer shared her thoughts about female sexuality.
Krakauer includes the part that says that women are finally agreed to want sex, but then the author asks "But does that mean we experience desire in the same way that men do? [Her] lust tells her we don't." At the end of the excerpt, it says that the dialogue that occurs in her brain is "Not I want this, but Do I want this? What exactly do I want? How about now? And now?" I thought this excerpt was an interesting one to include. So much so that I looked up the article and read the whole thing. Ir is about eight pages, and it covers what women authors have said about women and sex.

Rhetorically speaking, I wondered why Krakauer chose to include it in this section, especially since the main topic is on Kerry Barrett and Zeke Adams. The nature of their encounter (and her subsequent assault) began in a friendly manner at a bar. They ran into each other while drinking, began talking to each other and headed towards his house. She made it clear she was not going to sleep with him, and he said that was ok, he just did not want her to go home for fear that her walk would be unsafe. (Already, that statement by him plays on a dominant trope that her chances of being attacked are higher in the dark at night, by a stranger.) So she stayed with him. They fell asleep on his bed, with her being fully-clothed. She woke up to her pants at her ankles and him attempting to assault her.

When the police questioned her, she made sure to indicate along the way, the points at which Adams had her consent, and where he didn't. She made clear to them what she had wanted and what she had not wanted. Here is where I am confused, or at least interested in why Krakauer chose to include the above excerpt. The way that Kerry Barrett described their encounter is that she knew how far she wanted to go and when she wanted to stop. The above excerpt might throw some rhetorical confusion into the mix. This is just because that woman is saying that she is not always sure if she wants something or why she wants something. That is not the way it was described in part two. Does Krakauer intend to use that piece as a way to characterize the police's understandings of the situation? Is it meant to be a characterization of the way many people would understand the situation?

I thought it added an interesting layer to the beginning of part two, but the excerpts like that can be really important to a reader's understanding of a chapter. Those excerpts can frame the view of the chapter because they act as a preface of sorts. I may be missing Krakauer's point with this one, but I thought it was important to discuss. That excerpt may make it seem like women are just confused in sexual encounters. It may make it seem like if a woman were to allege assault or misconduct, that someone could respond saying, "well are you sure you didn't want it?" And that is exactly what some of the people did.