The Reasonably Prudent Law Student

It seems that I can’t stop talking about sex crimes, huh? Yesterday bore witness to my epic Everything is Terrible meltdown over the Hofstra rape case, and today, I’m stuck on the fact that Mackenzie Phillips, daughter of John Phillips of the Mamas & Papas (oh, how I listened to them in high school during my oldies phase), claims that her incestuous relationship with her father later become ‘consensual.’

If you haven’t read that story, you can find it here, or on any gossip blog this morning. Mackenzie’s Oprah appearance will be aired sometime soon, but I lack the constitutional and testicular fortitude to watch. Also, I hate Oprah.

(AP)

The article at People.com reads:

“On the eve of my wedding, my father showed up, determined to stop it,” writes Phillips, who was 19 and a heavy drug user at the time. “I had tons of pills, and Dad had tons of everything too. Eventually I passed out on Dad’s bed.”

“My father was not a man with boundaries. He was full of love, and he was sick with drugs. I woke up that night from a blackout to find myself having sex with my own father.”

“Had this happened before? I didn’t know. All I can say is it was the first time I was aware of it.”

Phillips’ life began to spiral out of control. In 1980, she was fired from One Day at a Time because of her constant drug use. That same year, she went to rehab – with her father. Her sexual relationship with him had become consensual.

And what I can’t get past is that Mackenzie Phillips herself used the word ‘consensual’ to describe this relationship. Yes, the incestuous part is also pretty tough to get past, but I’m ignoring that because it makes my stomach roll.

Consensual.

“Consensual.”

Really? REALLY?

I talked a little about consent yesterday in relation to the Hofstra rape case, and said simply that it was a VERY gray area when in the context of sexual conduct. That doesn’t really need any more explanation, does it? I could rattle off eighty billion rhetorical questions to show how complex the issue is, but I don’t need to, right? We all agree on this, right? Right?

Good.

She called her sexual relationship with her father “consensual.” We can all agree that if John Phillips were alive today (he died in 2001), that quote would not get him off the hook. Not by a long shot. Would it mitigate the charges at all? Even a tiny bit? I want to say, absolutely not, but I’ve seen stranger things happen in court cases. Seriously. Bah.

I guess I’m just stuck on this because she could have said “my relationship with my father became gumballs at that point” and that would have made more sense conceptually than “consensual.”

A sexual relationship between a father and a daughter, getting past the eye-gouging nature for just a moment, is rooted in the love, obligation, and power of the father-daughter relationship. I don’t care how opposite-sex-Gilmore-Girls that father-daughter relationship is, that does not change. (God, I can’t believe I just quoted Gilmore Girls in relation to something remotely legal. I’m THAT girl. The one I made fun of non-stop when she did the same thing.)

Sex between a father and daughter can never, under any circumstances, be consensual. The idea that Mackenzie thought it was and described it as such (while making a plea for the public not to hate her father) is as disturbing to me as the actual events of this story.