The International Monetary Fund chief, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, was being held in isolation at Rikers Island. But he had high-powered lawyers and, like Mr. Schwarzenegger, highly placed friends and family to defend him. Mr. Schwarzenegger and his wife, Maria Shriver, a member of the Kennedy family, issued statements insisting on their family’s right to privacy.

The women suddenly thrust into the spotlight must rely instead, at least initially, on neighbors to protect their privacy. In the Bronx, a man who said he was the hotel worker’s brother confessed to a reporter the day after he was quoted in newspapers that in fact, he was not.

The silence from the women inevitably is answered with storylines hastily pieced together.

The housekeeper from the Sofitel in New York, where the assault was said to have occurred, was reported in The New York Post to live in a residence for people with H.I.V. or AIDS. Her lawyer denied that in an interview on “Today.”

Lawyers for Mr. Strauss-Kahn, a politician who was viewed as a strong candidate to run against the French president next year, were expected to argue that any sex may have been consensual. At his arraignment this week, they said that the forensic evidence “will not be consistent with a forcible encounter.” Her lawyer disputed that as well.