So many questions come to mind after MacKenzie Phillips shocking relation on the Oprah Winfrey Show. Not only was it shocking to hear that her father had sex with her. Even more shocking is that she calls their 10 year sexual relationship consensual.
Phillip’s former stepmother, Genevieve Waite , in a statement to the Oprah show, said "I am stunned by Mackenzie's terrible allegations about her father. I would often complain about her overly familiar attitudes towards him, and he said it was just her way. John was a good man. He was incapable, no matter how drunk or drugged he was, to have sexual relations with his own child."
Talk about pure denial. First of all, the relationship that MacKenzie Phillips had with her father was not consensual. He gave her drugs to which she became addicted. He raped her in her sleep. He was her father, which gave him power over her by virtue of that relationship. Phillips talks about regaining consciousness the morning after he first raped her. She told Oprah, "I started very early on in my life compartmentalizing, boxing away difficult memories. And this was the mother of all difficult experiences," she says. This is not the statement of someone who has had consensual sex. This is the statement of someone who has been victimized.
Genevieve Waite is also in denial if she believes that a man is too “good” to have a sexual relationship with his child, regardless of being drunk or drugged. I can’t help but wonder if everyone in MacKenzie Phillip’s life was in such denial. This man gave her drugs as early as age 11. He taught her how to shoot up as well. Why would anyone be so naïve as to think a man who would do this is too “good” to rape his own daughter?
As a person who was sexually abused by my own father as a teenager for 8 years of my life, I know what it is like to live life keeping a secret such as this. Your mind plays tricks on you. You feel shame and guilt. You start thinking that you are doing something to invite such unwelcome attention from your own father, because this is easier than believing your own father would rape you. You start to hate yourself. You start to wonder if everyone is staring at you, for surely you must look different to them. You live in fear. You are afraid to tell anyone because you do not want to be responsible for breaking up your family. Despite the abuse, you still love your father because there are good childhood memories mixed in with the awful memories. You realize that everyone else thinks your father is a wonderful man, and you start to wonder if you are the one who is delusional. Because he is your father, you still long for his approval, and will do what you need to do to get it. You may grit your teeth during it. You may do whatever it takes to erase your emotional and physical pain (including drugs). You become a shell of a person, and get to the point you no longer even know who you are anymore.
Sometimes you get the courage to tell someone, which is what I did at age 15. Sometimes the person will not believe you. My mother did not believe me and left me to suffer through 3 more years of hell. When I asked my own father why he was molesting me, his response to me was, “Molesting you? I am just showing you a little affection.” Similarly, when MacKenzie Phillips confronted her father about raping her, she told Oprah that her father responded “Raped you? Don’t you mean when we made love?” Two very similar responses from 2 different abusers.
It saddens me to hear MacKenzie Phillips and those around her call her relationship with her father an “affair” or a “consensual relationship”. It wasn’t. Just because a person does not scream or protest or run to the police does not mean it was consensual. There are so many underlying dynamics.
A word of advice...if you are married to a man and you have the slightest hint of a reason to believe he is sexually abusing your child, you must put your responsibility to your child over your love for your husband. It won’t be easy. It may be the most difficult thing you have ever done, but you may be saving your child from a lifetime of mental and emotional anguish.
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Comments: 35
Kathryn Harrison shocked the publishing world 10 or so years ago when she wrote a book about the incestuous relationship she had with her dad.
Her dad left when she was young, to return when she was 19. They had a kiss, and from there it proceeded to a sexual relationship.
Her husband said she closeted herself away and wrote like a fury until the book was done.
It was a best seller. I did not read it, but read about it.
Interesting that the publishing world held a taboo on incest for many years.
Gee, such an important topic that affects so many. And the publishing world finally broke free of that taboo.
Whenever I hear certain 'clues' I pretty much know what has happened in a family. Or when I see certain 'clues.' I don't remark about them at the time to family members, but invariably someone comes forward sometime.
How dare people say she is making this all up, THEY are the ones that don't even want to think about this subject, imagine living through this nightmare. Her parents warped into a fun house mirror, giving her drugs, and abusing her. Terrible.
I do wonder if going public was in the best interest for Mackenzie. Perhaps this would have been better said in a psychologist office. I have a friend who had to come "out" of this closet due to court proceedings. For her, it was worth it because justice was served.
If it were that easy - this part of your life shapes you and it will never be past and gone.
All you can do is deal with it and that is different for each person. A molested child, teenager, young woman will never be right, until she's faced these demons.
But it is not ever a "it happened, I'm over it" all you can do is accept what happened and move on - but the awful part is how it changed you from the inside out.
It can't be because you were violated - there are a myriad of ugly issues. From "you can you ever trust a man" to "it was all my fault and I'm really a bad worthless person."
I aleays suspected something like this was going on in Mackenzie's life.
She has only begun to heal and I hope she gets a lot of help and support from this time forward, because if she doesn't it can throw her into the deepest depression and possibly suicide. All she has ever known is sick love. It will take years for her to learn healthy love.
Likewise if you are divorcing a man and you have the slightest inclination to claim he is sexually abusing your child, you must put your responsibility to your child over your hate for your husband and the sotto voce goading of your lawyer; for you WILL utterly and irreparably destroy two lives; that of your child and that of the man who fathered the child.
HUGS Cheryl. You are amazing for telling your story in defence of another.
Stories of people like McKenzie Philipps and anyone else who has been through abuse should make the rest of the world more aware of the responsibility we have to keep our children safe. There is so much horror suffered by children of all ages and I think we should all be more cognizant of our jobs as protectors of all children.
Cheryl, you're very brave to tell your story. I'm so sorry this happened to you.