Mackenzie Phillips Admits Sex With Father Was “Abuse”; And Not Consensual

Mackenzie Phillips has recently returned to Oprah with other victims of incest and admitted that she was abused.

She sparked huge debate in the media about whether or not incest can ever be consensual a few weeks ago when she originally spoke about a sexual relationships with her father .

“I’ve been schooled,“ she admitted. “What went on was not consensual. There’s cooperation. There’s participation. But consent implies sound mind and body and that wasn’t the case.”

“What would you call it then?” asked Winfrey.

Phillips looked into the camera and stated her reply plainly. “I call it abuse.”

It seems like Phillips was struggling with what a lot of victims of rape and abuse struggle with; coming to terms with the fact that it happened in spite of their best efforts to stop it. By feeling like they have no right to say no and are totally overpowered by the abuser they compensate (sub-consciously?) by cooperating.

Additionally, their bodies respond accordingly. This means that they may feel physical sexual pleasure even though their mind is screaming for it to stop.

The most important thing for rape victims to understand is it is not their fault. Just because their body feels pleasure doesn’t mean they want it to happen or it is consensual. Our bodies act on reflex and, just like your leg kicking out when you hit your knee, if your body is stimulated in a certain way, regardless of who or how it happens, you will feel sexual pleasure.

I am happy Phillips has spoken out about this again. However, I do wonder, is she simply doing this from too much media pressure? Maybe she really does still believe it was consensual. Nobody will ever really know, but so long as she is helping to educate people about rape and incest it doesn’t really matter, does it?

See our article that originally covered this story here.