An Open Letter to Mackenzie Phillips

Dear Ms. Phillips,

Congrats on the role in Orange is the New Black. A recent article by Keryn Donnelly at mamamia.com.au about your role was headlined with what I call the "i" word, because it gets a lot of attention. In fact, almost all of the article was about your past, rather than what you're doing now as far as acting and show biz. Your longevity in show biz is quite impressive, especially considering what you've endured.. I do remember watching your earlier roles, and I'm glad you're on such an esteemed show.

Here's what the article, which I'm assuming accurately quotes you, contained that caught my attention.

Many members of Phillips’ family have not forgiven her for exposing her relationship with her famous father. When she released her book in 2009, some spoke out against her and claimed it was unfair she had come forward with these allegations when her father was not around to defend himself.

It seems to me you were unfairly attacked.

If you were abused, then it was your story to tell regardless of whether your abuser was still alive or not.

If you were not abused, it was still your story to tell and you spared your father undue attacks while he was still alive.

But let's continue...

But Phillips says she’s made peace with her past.
“I have to say that I loved my father, and I still do. I’ve been trying to come to terms with this very difficult past,” she told Winfrey.
“I can’t be the only one this has happened to. Someone needs to put a face on not only non-consensual incest, but consensual incest, and I know that I can’t be the only one who’s lived through this. So in finding this redemption, maybe I’m helping someone else.”

You are exactly right.

Someone needs to speak up about both these two very different things that are often conflated: abuse by a close relative and consanguinamory. They are two very different things. It is our contention that the stigma and even criminalization attached to consanguinamory hinders effective prevention and prosecution of cases of abuse. It is also unjust to interfere in the love lives of consenting adults.

Because of your book and subsequent interviews, you've probably heard secrets people have, both about abuse and about consanguinamory. You've probably heard such secrets from celebrities and from fans, maybe even complete strangers you just happened to encounter.

Maybe you should be involved in raising awareness? Or maybe you just want to connect with people who don't lump all sexual activity between close relatives into the abuse category. Please feel free to reach out. As with anyone else who contacts me, I never share what someone tells my privately (even with their own lover) unless they grant me permission to do so.

I can't know for sure if your physical relationship with your father was abuse, consensual, or a mix of both. I'm not even sure if either of you could know for sure, given the mind-altering substances you both were using. I do reject the assertion that some people make that any sexual relationship between an adult and their parent is abuse by the parent. I do know that there are adults who do have consensual sex with family members, whether on a recreational level or a spousal level. I have seen it myself. Whether you were abused by your father or you consented to and initiated everything, it makes little sense for anyone to attack you about it. The attacks can be abusive!


People often cite a power differential as to why such relationships should not be considered consensual. It is Discredited Argument #20. Where does the power differential end when it comes to parent-child? Is it different between father-daughter, mother-son, mother-daughter, and father-son? What if the parent is 50 years old and the child 33? What if the parent is 70 and the child 53? What if the child was raised by someone else? Why not just let consenting adults do what they want when it comes to sex?

Thank you for saying what you did. If that's as far as you'll go with this, that's fine. However, I would welcome your contact, encouragement, or general support in helping to make consent clear, and honored. Abusers need to be stopped. And nobody should be rejected by family or abused, especially by their own government, for consenting to love, sex, residence, or marriage with a close relative.

You are welcome to join our forum under a screen name, where you can compare your own experiences to those of others.

-Keith Pullman of Full Marriage Equality

Billy Bush Tells Phillips To Stay in the Closet

Mackenzie Phillips was promoting her book on the syndicated television show Access Hollywood. Phillips has been essentially bullied into reframing her sexual relationship with her father as nonconsensual. Billy Bush doesn’t want to talk about consanguineous sex at all.

"Can this thing not be dealt with privately?" asked Bush. "To all the people who don't want to see it on TV, why can't it be dealt with on the couch?"

"So many people who are survivors of incest feel alone. There's no one for them to look to and go, 'Hey, if she can talk about this, I can talk about it. I can help effect a change,'" Phillips responded.

Bush remains undeterred, however, and says incest is a topic he doesn't even want to discuss. "I told my executive producer I don't want to do this," he said. "I think it should be a private thing and I don't book the show."

It would have been nice if they would get someone who asks the obvious questions: “What is wrong with adults having consensual sex? Why should only some consensual sex be discussed on TV but not all?”

From another interview Mackenzie Phillips had with Parent Dish…

PD: Before writing the book, you say you never considered yourself a victim of incest, that you saw yourself as a willing partner.

MP: I write in the added chapter about how I had never gone into the inner workings of the mind of the survivor and using the word "consensual." And I realized, with help from people like Dr. Drew, that I had been led to believe by my father that it was consensual since I wasn't fighting him off. So, therefore I was complicit and I took that on as my reality and beat myself up.

The trouble with this is that someone could say this about any sexual relationship, with a family member of not. If they later convince themselves (or let others convince them) that it was a bad idea, should it be considered rape? Phillip's father, by various accounts, was abusive in various ways, but I'm not sure adult sex falls into that category. And yet, that is where the focus is put.

Despite Mackenzie Phillips, Some Sex Between Family Consensual

Mackenzie Phillips appeared on The Today Show, and talked about reaction to her book.

A year and a half after she released a memoir revealing she was the victim of incest at the hands of her singer father, Mackenzie Phillips is still dealing with the fallout - a decided chill from family members, a psyche still bruised over criticism about her confession.

She may have been a victim of bad parenting, but what she really a victim of incest? She was and adult when, according to her, she and her father had a ten year affair that ended only because she got pregnant.

Perhaps less surprising was the family reaction to Phillips’ publicly airing her incest story. While Phillips told Vieira she has received waves of support from other incest victims and has unwavering support from her mother Susan Adams, other parts of her extended family are now lost to her. Her brother Jeff and celebrity stepsisters Chynna and Bijou Phillips no longer speak to her, while her stepmother, actress and former Mamas & the Papas singer Michelle Phillips, has repeatedly lambasted her incest story.

Much of this has to do with prejudice towards consanguineous sex between adults.

In her memoir, Phillips writes that what began as incest under pressure from her father eventually became consensual, but she has since learned through counseling and from other incest survivors that “there is no such thing as consensual incest.”

Yes, there is such a thing. It is when adults, be they siblings, parent-child, or some other close relations have sex with each other without any kind of coercion or incapacitation that prevents them from expressing their rejection. I suspect she wasn’t prepared for the amount of bigotry there still is, and thus is accepting the line that it couldn’t have been consensual.

Based on what Phillips says about her father and her own childhood, I would say there was a lot going on that was wrong, such as substance abuse. I am against grooming; I think parents should raise their children to be independent adults who truly make their own choices about whether or not to even stay in contact with the family at all. (If you’re a good parent, you’re not going to lose contact with your child permanently because, sooner or later, the child will realize you were a good parent, unless something is horribly wrong with the child.) But she only speaks of “grooming” now, not when she first wrote the book. Surely she’d been through enough therapy before writing the book that if she had been groomed, she would have said so originally.

I do believe it is rape when someone is unconscious. I don’t believe it is rape when that adult, when conscious, voluntary returns over and over again to engage in sex.

The only two people who could know for sure what went on between Phillips and her father are those two. Both were frequently stoned at the time and he’s dead. So none of us knows for sure what really went on. But I do know that there are adults who do have consensual sex with family members, whether on a recreational level or a spousal level. I have seen it myself.

Clearly, Phillips has been through much. I hope she is well and stays well. But I also hope that people reject the idea that close family members aren’t able to have consensual sex, because there are many people out there who know differently, and the prejudice against how they are living their lives is keeping them marginalized.

People often cite a power differential as to why such relationships should not be considered consensual. It is argument #20. Where does the power differential end when it comes to parent-child? Is it different between father-daughter, mother-son, mother-daughter, and father-son? What if the parent is 50 years old and the child 33? What if the parent is 70 and the child 53? What if the child was raised by someone else? Why not just let consenting adults do what they want when it comes to sex?

Mackenzie Phillips’ Siblings Feared Prejudice?

From a blurb in the New York Post…

The "One Day at a Time" star wasn't prepared for her family's hostile reaction after revealing on Oprah that she had a long sexual entanglement with her father, The Mamas & The Papas frontman John Phillips, she claims in a new chapter in the paperback version of her shocking memoir, "High on Arrival."

Brother and sister Jeffrey and Bijou Phillips cut all ties with Mackenzie after her shattering revelations, despite knowing about the incest for years.

So their problem was with their sister going public with the news. This could be due to the fact that there is so much hate thrown at those who have consanguineous sex. I doubt the siblings would have been so concerned if there wasn’t so much prejudice. Adults should be allowed their choice of consenting sexual partners. My concern is for anyone to whome either of them had vows that would be violated. If she had such vows with her husband, for example, that is where the objection should be; cheating.

Mackenzie Phillips Book Update

Mackenzie Phillips has a paperback edition of her book hitting stores soon, with updates, including her family’s reaction to her writing and speaking of having a sexual relationship with her father.

It would be interesting for an objective party to go through how the delivery of her message has changed in response to media reaction.

I’m not privy to the specific dynamics of her relationship with her father, but in general, a woman should be able to write and talk about having a consensual sexual relationship with her father (or mother, sister, brother, etc.) without being trashed or told she’s mistaken about her consent or feelings about it, and without the deceased person being trashed.

Chynna Talks Mackenzie

One of the people Joy Behar had on her show last night was Chynna Phillips. Behar asked Chynna about her sister Mackenzie Phillips’ statement that she has a sexual relationship with their father.

BEHAR: It`s brutal to find -- did you believe her?

CHYNNA PHILLIPS: Well, yes.

BEHAR: You did?

CHYNNA PHILLIPS: Yes.

BEHAR: I believe her.

CHYNNA PHILLIPS: Yes.

BEHAR: Why would she make up something --

CHYNNA PHILLIPS: You have to be crazy. (INAUDIBLE). Who`s going to do that?

BEHAR: When you think of it, though, it`s your father, you know?

CHYNNA PHILLIPS: Yes.

BEHAR: It must make you wonder about him your whole life.

CHYNNA PHILLIPS: Well, I was not raised with my dad.

BEHAR: Lucky.

CHYNNA PHILLIPS: Yes. My father was a very talented, very creative, very wonderful man. He really was. The only thing was that he had a very serious heroin addiction.

It is clear that Chynna and Joy are against a father and adult dauther having sex. That last statement from Chynna implies that she chalks up the sex to her father’s heroin addiction.

I’ve never tried heroin, so maybe I’ve wrong, but I don’t think it causes people to have sex with each other if they otherwise wouldn’t. If a "straight" man blamed alchohol for him having sex with another man, would you buy it?

If it happened, and only one living person knows for sure, then her father wanted to have sex with her sister. On some level, her sister wanted it, too. You can make a case for either of them having reduced capacity, but the desire must have been there on some level.

Phillips Experience One Bad Example

Actress Mackenzie Phillips has gotten back into the news by revising her story about her relationship with her father.

Phillips, 49, described her sexual relationship with her father as consensual in her memoir "High on Arrival," which was published last year.

However, TVGuide.com reported Wednesday she said on Joy Behar's HLN chat show that she didn't categorize the relationship properly in her book and that her father actually raped her.

Assuming everything Phillips has told the world is true, then the first time was rape. It sounds like both she and her father were on mind altering substances and that she was passed out. If she was passed out, she couldn’t have consented.

Although young, she was an adult. Her father’s poor parenting, including exposing her to drugs while she was very young, made him a horrible parent, and certainly he was wrong to take an unconscious woman. But sometime along the ten years of physical interaction between them as adults (such as when she woke up during the first event), her ability to say “no” kicked in – and she didn’t say “no” for ten years. She chose to be around her father, and she chose to engage in that behavior with her father. He’s dead, she’s alive. It sounds like she has been under tremendous pressure to deny that any of it was consensual.

"I'd like to reframe my word, 'consensual,'" Phillips said. "As I was writing the book, I thought, this word, it kept sitting wrong with me, but I used it for lack of a better word, and since then I've been schooled by thousands of incest survivors all across the world that there really is no such thing as consensual incest due to the inherent power a parent has over a child."

It is wrong to say that there is no such thing as a consensual consanguineous sex. Look around, and you will find happy situations.

Most parents wish they had power over their children, even as adults, in matters serious and trivial - but they don't. Also, there is almost always a power differential in sexual relationships. The strength of the physical attraction may be different, one partner has more potential partners from whom to choose than the other, they have different personalities and experiences, one has more money or power than the other.

Phillips is unlikely to be contacted by those with positive experiences in consanguineous love. She is hearing from a lot of people, most of them who has been abused or raped, especially as minors, and were hurt by their experiences, even if they were adults who were not raped or abused.

Consanguineous, adult sex can be a wonderful experience, as can loving relationships in which it takes place. However, it isn’t for everyone. You are unlikely to hear much about the good experiences because those who speak up risk persecution, derision, and criminal charges.

Unfortunately, Phillips’ experiences are likely to be used by bigots to deny the freedom to marry to consenting adults. While I hope she is getting all of the help for her bad childhood and substance abuse that she needs, I also pray she will be more careful in her public statements. Nothing should stand in the way of consenting adults who love each other.