Crime

Lorena Bobbitt: A Slice Of Wife (A Tale of Domestic Abuse And Irresistible Impulse)

The film shows how far we’ve come since the time when a woman charging her husband with rape was not believed. 

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Lorena Bobbitt (Photo by J. DAVID AKE/AFP/Getty Images)

“Lorena,” the story of Lorena Bobbitt (recently released on Amazon) has it all — sex, jealously, courtroom drama, immigrant woes, media obsession, and a bizarre crime. For those who don’t remember, one night in 1993 in the intimacy of their bedroom, Lorena took an eight-inch kitchen-carving knife and cut off her husband’s penis.  He said he felt “a pull, then a jerk.”  He thought he was dreaming, but when he woke up, he was covered in blood, his penis missing.

Squads of police, firemen, and EMTs eventually found the severed member tossed in a field near a 7-Eleven.  A police sergeant stepped on it.  It was encased with ice in a hotdog bag and rushed to the hospital where John Wayne Bobbitt waited.  It got reattached.

The documentary series, broken into four compact one-hour episodes, covers a reenactment of what Lorena did, by far the most entertaining of the episodes because of all the puns and cross-your-legs queasiness of male first-responders and doctors.  It then moves to husband John Wayne Bobbitt’s trial for domestic abuse (he was acquitted), then onto Lorena Bobbitt’s trial for malicious wounding, and a coda that follows their lives after the media storm, tying in the differences between how domestic abuse was treated in the 1990s compared to today.

Lorena Bobbitt was an Ecuadoran immigrant who came to the United State for high school and never left.  She met and married handsome marine cadet John Wayne Bobbitt in hopes of living a happily-ever-after life.

Instead, Lorena says, Bobbitt abused her throughout their relationship — pushing, choking, kicking, and smacking her.  He denied it all, and she stayed in the marriage, afraid Bobbitt might go to immigration authorities and get her deported, or worse, kill her.

According to Lorena, Bobbitt raped her on a regular basis, insisting on anal sex until she bled.  Finally, she had enough.  One night, after he came home drunk (a not-uncommon event) and tried to force sex on her, she went into the kitchen, got an eight-inch knife, and cut off his penis.  The cut was so clean, a surgeon could have done it, said the surgeon who did the reattachment.

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The first episode of the documentary is well worth the watch.  Jam-packed with double-entendres and double-takes by EMS, police, and doctors in a she-did-what! kind of way, it’s both shocking, funny, and suspenseful.  At first, you don’t know who to believe.

From John Wayne’s perspective, his wife was a hot-tempered Latin “bitch” and her first statement to police didn’t help her case.  She wrote that she cut off her husband’s penis because he never waited for her to climax, but always orgasmed first.

John Wayne was acquitted of domestic abuse and took his show on the road. He formed the short-lived rock band, “The Severed Parts,” appeared in pornographic films (“Frankenpenis” and “Uncut”), and went on the Howard Stern show to raise money for his defense. (Stern created a “penis meter,” a giant mockup of a cardboard penis, to measure the amount of money made.)

But after years of doing his best to capitalize on his fame from the case, he ultimately became a laughing stock, losing jobs, getting botched penis enhancement surgery, and not amounting to more than being the butt of tasteless punchlines. (He’s interviewed at length in the series.)

Lorena, meanwhile, faced a trial of her own. Charged with malicious wounding, she faced years in jail and deportation if convicted.

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The media was as much a part of the trial as the jurors. Twenty TV satellite trucks were regularly parked outside the courthouse. Vendors hawked T-shirts (“Manassas, Virginia, a Cut Above the Rest” or “Don’t slice it… Don’t dice it… Bobb it.”) The trial was broadcast live and viewers heard the defense attorney’s opening remarks which included, “It was his penis from which she could not escape. Conclusion, a life is more valuable than a penis.”

In an astute use of the defense of temporary insanity (NB, this defense is only available in very few states) and battered-wife syndrome, Lorena comes into her own, takes the stand, and builds a consensus among the public — John Wayne deserved it.   The jury finds her not guilty by reason of temporary insanity.

Produced by “Us” and “Get Out” director Jordan Peele, the docuseries is savvy, humorous, comprehensive, and analytical.

It shows how far we’ve come since the time when a woman charging her husband with rape was not believed.  As Howard Stern put it back then, “I don’t even buy that he was raping her; she’s not that great looking.”

Nowadays, with the consciousness-raising of the #MeToo movement, police and prosecutors take these charges seriously.

Lorena Bobbitt has since founded a domestic violence organization that educates the public about domestic abuse.

According to media reports, John Wayne lives in North Las Vegas searching for treasure hidden by art dealer Forrest Fenn in the Rockies.  He pays his bills from a disability settlement following a 2014 car crash, supports President Donald Trump, and maintains his innocence.

Toni Messina has tried over 100 cases and has been practicing criminal law and immigration since 1990. You can follow her on Twitter: @tonitamess.

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