Unless you were living under a rock last week, you likely either saw or heard that Mackenzie Phillips was on Oprah, discussing her upcoming book, High on Arrival, and what Phillips claims was the dark secret her family tried to ignore for years: That she and her father had a 10-year long incestuous (and, eventually, in her words, consensual) affair.

She says that it only ended when she became pregnant and was unsure whether the father was her boyfriend or her dad; she had an abortion and never let him touch her again. She is sharing now, she says, because surely she can't be the only person to whom this has happened.

Mass reaction to this revelation has run the gamut, from sympathy and compassion for Phillips to people convinced that she's a lying, delusional, gold-digging famewhore. I first heard about this story on Facebook; one of my friends had a link about it posted, along with a comment that amounted to "ewwwwwww!" It was followed by comments from other friends, all following in a similar vein. "Yuck!" "OMG! GROSS!" and "What was she thinking?"

I was stunned. What was she thinking? My first thought was Stockholm Syndrome, and while that didn't appear to have occurred to anyone in my immediate circle, HuffPo's Alison Rose Levy concurred:

The assumption is that since she was a young adult, she could have stopped it. The reality is that she was not able to due what is known as the Stockholm Syndrome, in which people form what is called a "trauma bond" with their oppressors. Because survival depends upon the good will of the oppressor, the abused become infatuated with and bonded to them. The kidnapped heiress Patricia Hearst was a notable example of this. The trauma bond is common to victims of abuse, be they incested children or battered wives, as well as among prisoners of war, cult members, and victims of torture to name a few.

Traumatized people have traumatized brains which Phillips described on the Oprah show when she alluded to having "flashbacks," unwanted, repeating inner images, which she attempted to compartmentalize and block out. A traumatized brain does not respond or bounce back so easily. Drug use, also part of her family's behavior helped to annihilate awareness of the sexual episodes, the resulting emotional pain and the unwanted, intrusive memories-- that occurred later.

So this is the first fallacy I'm noticing, around the web -- people seem quick to believe that because Phillips was an adult, consent is consent; it somehow cancels out any prior rape, and she must be consciously and in sound mental health choosing to perpetuate the relationship (and therefore it cannot be termed abuse.)

HuffPo's Alex Leo strikes out at this assumption in her piece, Incest is NEVER Consensual:

Whether this is the media's understanding of her lack of outward protest or her own internalization of such heinous events, it's not true. She could not have given consent. She was 19 and drugged out of her mind and her father raped her. The trauma of that event combined with her obviously troubled past made her vulnerable to the saddest emotional and mental conditions: Women who are victims of sexual assault are 26 times more likely to abuse drugs and four times more likely to contemplate suicide. She was in no way capable of saying no to a man who had so much influence over her. I doubt incest victims ever are ever capable of consent with their abuser.

Why are people so willing to overlook Phillips' characterization of that first memory as waking up from a blackout to discover she was being raped? Even if you want to believe there was consent, later (in which case: please go back up a couple of paragraphs and read about Stockholm Syndrome again), where is the consent in blacking out and being mounted? I don't see it.

Cara at The Curvature says it better than I can:

Here’s the thing: Mackenzie refers to much of the sexual contact as “consensual.” I understand not wanting to put words in her mouth, and the liability that is involved with that — even though John Phillips was her father, and that should make this issue really clear cut. But the first instance was obviously rape. How do we know? Because one cannot consent to sex during a blackout. Also, because she called it as much on Oprah yesterday. She said that yes, it was rape. Her father raped her. (She also said that when she confronted him about it, his response was “Raped you? Don’t you mean the time we made love?” Extremely typical, if extremely disturbing, minimization and manipulation by an abuser.)

And I’m extraordinarily concerned that the media feels the so-called “consensual incest” is more interesting and newsworthy than explicitly defined rape. I’m seriously disturbed by the clear effort to overlook the latter in favor of the former. It shows where our priorities are, what discussions we are and aren’t comfortable with, and which transgressions are worth public shaming.

Cara goes on to call out Oprah and other media outlets for their judging of the situation, noting that:

People don’t want to hear anything about rapists that doesn’t involve them being evil, slimy, instantly identifiable monsters, who have absolutely no worth or humanity. People don’t want to hear it because it makes rape easier to ignore, deny, forget, and believe could never happen to them, could never be committed by someone they know.

That is precisely why people need to hear it.

It is here that I want to make another point I'm not seeing discussed anywhere else, too. Phillips writes it this way in her book:

"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."

I find Phillips' wording here very, very telling. Granted, yes, she was an addict. Her memories may be muddled due to drug use. But who says "Wow, this incredibly disturbing thing was happening and I have no idea if it happened before?" It seems like you'd remember, you know, if something like that had happened before...?

Except that if you were a victim of abuse, you might not. Repressed memories in cases of childhood sexual abuse are common, and whether or not there was sexual intercourse prior to the incident Phillips details, I suspect there was something prior to that. Her wording suggests to me that she suspects there was something prior to that.

And if that's true, then the people all insisting that she was an adult and it's not abuse need to -- say it with me now -- both acknowledge the possibility that this began when she was still a minor, and read up on Stockholm Syndrome. And shut up.

At the very least, the fact that John Phillips was actively getting his daughter hooked on drugs from a very early age is abusive in and of itself. So with that abuse as a precursor to what happened later, a skewed and extremely unhealthy relationship dynamic was already firmly in place.

NewMom at Mom To Mom agrees that age is not the issue:

[S]omehow there seems to be as much disdain for Mackenzie Phillips herself as for her father in all this sordid mess. Now, I understand that he is no longer alive and that serious drug abuse by both of them contributed to a sick and twisted life, but does the fact that Mackenzie was an older teen and young adult when much of this occurred make John Phillips any less culpable in the whole situation? I mean, a father is always a father after all, no matter how old his daughter may be, isn’t he?

The second fallacy I see being bantered about quite a bit is that Mackenzie Phillips could only be revealing this information now out of a desire to make money. Maybe I'm missing something, but surely there are better ways to sell a book than via the public flogging this woman is now undergoing. That hasn't stopped a contingent of critics from remaining convinced that this is a publicity stunt, pure and simple.

Lynn Hayes at Astrological Musings winds her way through Phillips' history and astrological chart, only to conclude with:

I'm sure it's just a coincidence that the revelation just happens to coincide with the release of her book next week.

Um. Ouch.

And Mary at Freedom Eden says:

If the story is true, I can't think of any reason why Mackenzie Phillips would want to tell the world. Is it really necessary for her personal healing?

I can't imagine her thinking this: To come to terms with having consensual sex with my dad up until I was 29, I must write a book about my illegal behavior and promote it on Oprah.

That's not healing. That's not trying to help others. That's not a selfless act. That's exploitation. Cha-ching.

I think plenty of people have written a book about trauma they've experienced -- and then promoted it any way available to them -- as part of their recovery process. Phillips is hardly the first to do this. "Telling the world" is a hugely important step in recovering from the shame so often present after sexual assault. The fact that Mackenzie Phillips is already a celebrity is a double-edged sword for her, here; it gives her a lot more attention/opportunities to talk about this than she might otherwise have, but it also opens her up to some really relentless, harsh criticisms.

Unfortunately, Phillips' story crosses so many taboos, she ends up an outcast from all of the groups that ought to be supporting her. Recovering addicts probably don't want others to think that their drug use led them to anything so twisted; victims of childhood incest which was never "consensual" may worry her story somehow strips credibility from their own experiences of powerlessness; there are, it seems, lots of easy justifications to minimize or dismiss her tale.

I don't know Mackenzie Phillips. Her story stuns and appalls me. And I suppose it will boost book sales, yes. Nevertheless, I believe her. I think this is a woman who has been through an unbelievable amount of trauma, and she doesn't deserve to be picked apart for finally arriving at a place where she's ready to cast off the last of the shame that has bound her for so many years. I hope she's able to find the resolution she seeks.

BlogHer Contributing Editor Mir also blogs about issues parental and otherwise at Woulda Coulda Shoulda, and about the joys of mindful retail therapy at Want Not.