Since the beginning of the 2000-2001 school year, 20 female Montezuma-Cortez High School students have indicated that they may have been raped by fellow students, but none of them have reported it to police, according to MCHS counselor Teri Helm.

"That’s the number of girls that have come to me," Helm said. "Unfortunately, my feeling is it’s just the tip of the iceberg because those are just the girls that came to me and talked."

According to police records, since January 1, 2001, there have been four sexual assaults reported in the city of Cortez and three in Montezuma County.

The figure of 20 rapes during the school year was first reported in the Panther Press, the high school’s newspaper.

Helm said that because of confidentiality reasons, she has not reported her information to the police, often because the girls won’t identify their assailant or because the victims are uncertain if what they experienced falls under the definition of rape.

"Those girls are not always sure that they want to call it rape. Sometimes they’re not sure it happened."

Helm defined rape as "unwanted or unsolicited sexual penetration" and said the girls who have sought her help have likely experienced a sexual assault but for some reason feel that they are in part to blame and don’t want to take legal action.

"They never want to press charges. And if they don’t want to say who it is, then it’s very difficult for me to report it. So my hands are tied," Helm said.

Former Montezuma County prosecutor Katy Cabot said people’s perceptions of what rape is also play into the legal side of sexual assault cases.

"I think when most people think about rape, they think about a stranger-type situation where a guy jumps out of the bushes and rapes a woman he’s never met, but the reality is that’s less than 10 percent of rape cases," Cabot said.

Helm said girls have told her stories about "trains" where several males take advantage of a female one right after the other and in plain sight at drunken parties. "It’s not done behind closed doors."

Other situations involve abusive relationships where a girl is forced to have sex while she is trying to break off a relationship but feels that because she has already engaged in sexual relations with the boy, the unwanted act is somehow justifiable.

Yet another situation Helm explained is a male’s expectation for reciprocity.

"It’s the ‘I took you out to dinner, you owe me’ attitude."

Cabot said that date-rape cases pose questions as to "if the woman said no, if she was capable of saying no and did the man understand she was saying no."

The victimizers of the high-school girls, Helm said, are often boyfriends or close acquaintances, and the girls, although they are seeking out counseling, don’t want to report the incidents because they fear the repercussions.

She said that she has seen girls who have pursued charges harassed by their peers to the point that they leave school permanently.

‘It makes me hesitate to encourage a girl to do it (report) because it comes back and bites her," Helm said.

Cabot said she encourages everyone to report rape in any circumstances.

"I think that all people should report them. Whether they’re prosecuted or not, at least there would be a written record somewhere. If the guy gets accused again, you’ve got some kind of a history you can get into (in court)," Cabot said.

According to Helm, drugs and alcohol are often muddling factors in date rape, and teenage parties are the most common venues for sexual assaults.

"That’s where 99 percent of that happens. They’re drinking, they’re drugging, they don’t care."

Helm said a major contributing factor is a general attitude in the Cortez community to "look the other way" when students drink.

"We condone it and say, ‘I was drinking when I was their age’," Helm said.

Cabot said drug and alcohol factors can also make it difficult to prosecute a rape case.

"There may be some memory loss but there’s also the issue of defense lawyers turning it around and making the victim somewhat responsible in some way," Cabot said.

Helm said the boys who commit the rapes are also in part a product of what society communicates to them.

"The boys are victims, too, of a system that says, ‘To prove your manhood you’ve got to drink, you’ve got to have sex’."

With prom and post-prom parties this weekend, Helm said this is an especially good time for parents to talk to their daughters and sons about sex and the choices they face.