Where have you been

Joyce Carol Oates' "Where are you going, where have you been", was an extremely uncomfortable read.  Connie seemed at first like a typical pretty high school girl.  She would look at other people to guage how she looked or felt herself.  Her mother was a bit on the unloving or unfriendly side, maybe because she wasn't as pretty as her daughter, and had some jealousy because of it.  The line about her having to sides to everything, one at home and one everywhere but home gave me the sense that she was always hiding something and always putting on a front.  At the end of the story, when the two men are threatening her and she wants to call the cops but knows by their tone that they will do what they have to in order to have their way with her.  This is where Oates draws the line of Connie going from child to adult.  She wanted to let her family remain safe, and in turn gave the man what he wanted, we can only assume.  I guess at a situation like that, considering that the most heroic thing she can do is basically volunteer to get sexually abused, I  don't know what to think.
Arnie Friend is a lunatic who found out everything about Connie so he would know just when to come to her house and do what he wanted.  He was a master manipulator who eventually got what he wanted, and likely ruined Connie's life for self pleasure.