How To Know When Sex Is Not Consensual
No, Mackenzie Phillips, that sex was not consensual.
Ever since Mackenzie Phillips dropped the bombshell on Oprah Winfrey last week about her decade-long "consensual" sexual relationship with her late father, the world has been asking: Why would anyone consent to having sex with one's dad, and for ten whole years?
Our answer: Despite Mackenzie's choice to use the word "consensual" in describing her relationship with her father, it never really was. Here's why:
1. If the the first sexual encounter with one's partner is a rape, then the subsequent sex with said partner is not consensual. Mackenzie says that the first time she and her father had sex, it was not consensual. Rather, she was passed out after using drugs and woke up to find him raping her. More rapes followed, in the same vein. Eventually, Mackenzie began to have sex with him while not unconscious. We believe this may be for a number of reasons: a sense of defeat, the belief that she couldn't do any better, the comfort of the familiar (however awful it might have been), brainwashing on the part of her rapist/father, or a survivalist attempt to "normalize" the rapes so as not to live in a constant state of shame/victimhood. We do not, by any means, see the sex as consensual, however. Mackenzie Phillips Says Father Raped Her
2. When one half a sexual partnership feels uncomfortable with the sex, and the other half consistently rationalizes it, the sex is not consensual. Mackenzie told her father that she considered their first sexual encounter a rape. He called it "making love." Mackenzie told her father that their secret relationship isolated her and reduced her to "a fragment of a person." Her father said that in countires like Fiji, it was "an accepted practice." Clearly, these two were not on the same page. Sombody was being coerced, and, needless to say, if coercion is involved, the sex is not consensual. When Sex Is A Weapon: Surviving Date Rape
3. If one partner is regularly pushing drugs or alcohol on the other partner in order to loosen him or her up, the sex is not consensual. In Mackenzie's case, her father provided her with drugs from the time she was a young child and made sure she had plenty of them the first time he had intercourse with her, as well as during the years that followed. Does a willing partner need to be inebriated in order to partake in sex? We don't think so. And we're certain that if he or she does, that she's being taken advantage of. Sober Dating: How To Date Without Drinking
4. When a person has sex with his or her child, it is not consensual. Relationships with parents are our first and most primal love relationships. They are based on need. They are based on a desire to please. They are based on obligation. And they are never equal. Thus, a parent who chooses to have sex with his or her child is exploiting and manipulating his or her child's love. It doesn't matter if that child is in grade school or, as in Mackenzie's case, a teenager. It is still not consensual.
Photo via Flickr user feastoffun.
Discussion
comments above is ok!
But i gonna to say is that wish there is no coercion of sexual intercourse!
I saw that interview and was as shocked as Oprah seemingly was by Mackenzie's attempts to rationalize her decision not to fight her father's advances anymore. That doesn't make what happened afterward consensual, not by any means! I do believe she suffered a form of Stockholm Syndrom in order to protect her violated sanity but the sex was never consensual. It was rape plain and simple.
Sexual encounters where both parties (or more) are enthusiastically saying "Yes Please!" and are of an age where the decision can be logically made is not rape nor can it ever be argued sanely that it is. When someone who has power over another person forces sex upon them it is coercion and by definition rape. As has been pointed out the parent child relationship makes any sexual conduct rape by it's very definition...even if the participants are willing.
Yes there are incidences where the child will approach the parent about an incestuous relationship, it's rare but it does happen and speaks more toward the warped relationship that existed before the approach. If the parent is ethical then they will understand that these types of advances are made from an immature understanding of love and relationships and they will gently and firmly place the boundaries up that are necessary for healthy child rearing...or seek some form of counselling for the family.
My heart aches for Ms. Phillps and what she lived through and is still living through. This is a horrible violation of the trust a child places in a parent and effect everyone the child ever deals with from that day forward.
This is an excellent piece with a clear explanation of why it wasn't consensual. There is a well-known phenomenon where hostages and kidnap victims begin to cooperate with the people who have taken them prisoner. It sounds like that is what happened here.
I find this nothing but ideological feces. According to some authors every sexual encounter is rape!! It has been well known that incest does occur and not always the parent starting it. There are memoirs and historical records dating back thousands of years. So this is more PC nonsense!!!
Vasha, I am going to assume you are a rational human being. I fail to see where opposition to incest or coerced sex is "PC." A sexual encounter where one person has power over another (such as a parent, employer, priest, etc.) by its very nature cannot be consensual. Rape by its very definition is forced sexual intercourse. Force can be either be physical, emotional or even financial. The "records" you speak of do not make it right for a parent to take sexual advantage of their child. EVER! You must subscribe to the "she was asking for it" defense of rape. Your definition of consensual sex, rape and political correctness could use a quick review in your handy Merriam-Websters. I can't tell if you are a man or a woman, but you are a human being and your contempt of mainstream society (where it is frowned on to sleep with your own child) makes me kind of creeped out and a little afraid of you. You might want to work on that.
I have never heard this nonsense about parent-child incest that is not started by the parent before. Where in the world have you seen that? Sounds like bull to me.
No one sensible argues that all sex is rape. Any one sensible understands that sex between and adult and a child is rape.
Just because there are records, doesn't make it right.
And no. This does not mean all sexual encounters are rape. But what it does it draw clear lines as to what is consent and what is not. If someone is using their power to coerce a person into sex that's not right.
