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The name Lorena Bobbitt makes many a man cross his legs. But there is much more to this story than a severed penis. John Wayne Bobbitt was an abusive piece of shit and Lorena was his victim.
--On This Day in History, Shit Went Down: June 23, 1993--
She has returned to her birth name of Lorena Gallo. She was born in Ecuador and moved to the U.S. in 1987, marrying Bobbitt two years later. For years Lorena suffered domestic violence at the hands of her husband, a former marine, who physically, sexually, and emotionally abused her.
On the night of June 23, 1993, Lorena took a knife from the kitchen and cut off her sleeping husband’s penis. She fled in her car, taking the penis with her, then threw it out the window. The penis was found and surgically reattached. And that’s what the media and the comedians all focused on. His dick being severed and sewn back on so that it mostly worked again and John could have a brief porn career afterward.
What got glossed over was why she did it. He fucking raped her, that’s why. She’d endured years of his abuse, and felt like she had no way to escape. That night he came home drunk, raped Lorena, then fell asleep. So she did what she did, saying it was a matter of survival, and was put on trial for it. John was also put on trial for marital rape, which had only very recently become illegal in all 50 states. But marital rape was exceedingly difficult to secure a conviction for in Virginia, where it all happened.
During Lorena’s trial a string of witnesses testified on her behalf, saying they frequently saw her with bruises on her arms and neck. She had repeatedly called 911 to report his domestic violence. John had bragged to friends about forcing his wife to have sex. Which is rape. Forcing someone to have sex with you is rape, even if you’re married. Get it through your fucking head.
The jury found Lorena not guilty by reason of temporary insanity, but John was also found not guilty of rape. Since the trial he’s been arrested several times and served jail time for attacks on two separate women. One of them was a girlfriend he tied to a bed and repeatedly raped over several days. What a piece of shit. Lorena, conversely, has become an advocate for victims of domestic violence.
The names of the two porn films John starred in were called Uncut and Frankenpenis. When John appeared on Howard Stern’s radio show Stern said, “I don’t even buy that he was raping her. She’s not that good looking.” So Stern is also a piece of shit, in case you had any doubts. John has maintained that he was planning to divorce her and had denied her sex that night and she cut off his penis in a vengeful rage. Riiiggghhttt.
Playboy offered Lorena $1 million to post nude for the magazine. She turned them down.
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Wowwww.
I've heard this story more recently evoked as "this shows how it's fucked up that we laugh at domestic abuse of men by female partners." That's partially true; violence, especially sexual violence, towards men is a comedic subject far too often, and the jokes made surrounding John were fucked up.
But at the SAME TIME, we love the "woman takes vengeance on their rapist" trope (Kill Bill and the many prior movies that inspired it, for example.) You'll also commonly hear calls for pedophiles to be physically castrated.
Ah, but there's a catch! The woman must be a "Good" Rape Victim: she is pretty-enough-to-rape, dressed modestly enough to not be asking for it, in a helpless position that she couldn't have avoided (the van comes by in broad daylight and she's grabbed, etc.), and she can't have any acquaintance whatsoever with the rapist.
All these ideas cannot be simultaneously true, and they're awful. Your piece does a brilliant job showing ALL these toxic ideas at play in the narrative of the Bobbitts. Thank you, James!
Highly recommend the Amazon series 'Lorena' about this case. This all happened before I was born, I had never even heard of the Bobbits but came across the show during a crime doco binge. I was expecting some sort of crazy, wild crime caper and instead was met with a heartbreaking meditation on domestic violence and vilification in the media. It's one of the better true crime series out there.
Lorena is strong as hell to survive what she endured. I'm not a violent person but I can't say I wouldn't have done the same thing in her place.