Man. This was hard to read, but Krakauer did an effective job of laying out the facts, transcripts, etc. that show what can happen to sexual assault victims when they try to seek justice--especially if their attacker was a "non-stranger." You've got everything including:

--police officers and detectives who haven't been trained in the psychology and mental processes of rape victims (which leads them to disbelieve the victim's accounts & question their actions)
--district attorneys offices who decline to prosecute (even when handed eye-witnesses and confessions from the attackers),
--public shaming and character attacks from friends and community members ("He's a handsome, popular football player. He doesn't need to rape people. You're just a slut who wants attention.")

As a result, women choose not to come forward and subject themselves to a flawed system & public opinion (instead suffering anxiety, depression, and PTSD), and their attackers walk away with the confidence to re-offend (which they frequently do, sometimes not even classifying what they are doing as "rape.").

One of the things that was eye-opening for me was learning about the range of ways victims may react during & after being assaulted, especially if it's by someone they know & trust. Because rape is so profoundly traumatic, the reaction to that trauma could include terror, confusion, denial (trying to "undo" it, maybe even by staying on good terms with their attacker), and self-blame. So behaviors or statements that would seem "counter-intuitive or paradoxical" to a person watching from the outside could be completely understandable from the context of a victim.