Is There Any Value to Mackenzie Phillips' Tell-All Book?

Even before the Oprah Winfrey show aired, the teaser for Mackenzie Phillips' revelations of a decade of incestuous sex with her famous father gave rise to a ton of articles. Some just report the facts, some are compassionate while others are cynical and sly. Mackenzie's story has been both believed and denied by members of her family and ex-wives of John Phillips. Her half-sister, Chynna, expressed belief and sorrow, while Chynna's mother, Michelle, flat out stated that she "knows" Mackenzie is lying. As for myself, I wanted to actually watch the Oprah show before writing this article.

Oprah began by having Mackenzie read from page 108 of her new memoir, High on Arrival, where an 18 year old Mackenzie becomes conscious during a blackout from drugs and alcohol to find her father sexually violating her. Horrified, she said she slid back into the blackout and awoke the next day alone.

Mackenzie later tried to speak to her father about it. She told him they needed to talk about when he raped her. Her father's response was: "You mean when we made love." Mackenzie said she realized that she was "on her own." Whether you believe her or not, make no mistake -- a person who has sex with an unconscious person is committing a sexual assault and is not "making love."

According to The National Center for Victims of Crime:

"Incest has been cited as the most common form of child abuse. Studies conclude that 43% of the children who are abused are abused by family members, 33% are abused by someone they know, and the remaining 24% are sexually abused by strangers (Hayes, 1990). Other research indicates that over 10 million Americans have been victims of incest.

One of the nation's leading researchers on child sexual abuse, David Finkelhor, estimates that 1,000,000 Americans are victims of father-daughter incest, and 16,000 new cases occur annually (Finkelhor, 1983). However, Finkelhor's statistics may be significantly low because they are based primarily on accounts of white, middle-class women and may not adequately represent low-income and minority women (Matsakis, 1991)."

While it is commonly believed that if a parent will sexually abuse one child, all the children are at risk, there are many cases where this is not so. Abusers often choose one child in particular for a variety of factors. It may be the one child no one will believe or care about if the child does not go along with the secret. It may be the child is the only one at the right age when the aberrant desire overtakes the abuser. Whatever the reason, as Mackenzie Phillips' story unfolded, it seemed rather evident that not even she was aware she was being groomed to be "daddy's girl" from her early teens.

Mackenzie indicated that she considered the relationship between herself and John Phillips to have become "consensual," yet she really has no idea how many times her father sexually abused her while she was passed out. What she also describes is someone who loved her father so much that if sex was what he wanted from her, she let him have it as long as she could have a drug barrier with which to anesthetize herself and pretend it wasn't happening.

When Oprah asked when, how and why it all ended, Mackenzie told Oprah that she became pregnant and, without knowing whether the baby was conceived with her boyfriend or father, she had to have an abortion. She said that her father paid for the abortion and was aware that there was a possibility he had impregnated her. Mackenzie said she never let her father touch her again.

What I did not see on Oprah's show was a faded child star turned addict grasping for attention that many had decided Mackenzie Phillips is, without even seeing the show or reading her book.

I saw an incredibly honest woman who has suffered enormous guilt and loneliness and who still feels grief and responsibility in her heart, although she rationally knows she was not the one who broke trust.

I'm not going to go into the aspect of why she chose to reveal this information after John Phillips' death too much. Oprah did ask Mackenzie if she would have spoken out if he was still alive. Mackenzie could not be certain she would for reasons not totally clarified. It serves no purpose now to delve into whether he would have denied it or explained to the rest of his family that there were cultures that are okay with incest. I'm also not going into a diatribe on what kind of twisted individual would do this to his own child.

But there is one point I'd like to cover. Michelle Phillips told Roger Friedman of The Hollywood Reporter that Mackenzie told her about this years ago and then called her back and said it was a joke. Someone needs to point out to Michelle that sexually abused people send out cries for help from time to time, and when they sense none will be forthcoming, they recant. I can't believe that a woman as intelligent as Michelle Phillips does not know that.

Perhaps when the firestorm dies down, there can be some significance and value in Mackenzie Phillips' revelations if friends and family members will heed some of these cries for help from sexual abuse victims, whether interfamilial or not.

Follow-up: Chynna Phillips Supports Mackenzie on Oprah