John and Lorena Bobbitt
Encyclopedia : J : JO : JOH : John and Lorena Bobbitt
-->John Wayne Bobbitt (born March 23, 1967 in Buffalo, New York) and Lorena Leonor Gallo de Bobbitt (born 1970 in Bucay, Ecuador) were an American couple, married on June 18, 1989, who were best known for a 1993 incident in which Lorena severed a portion of John's penis with a kitchen knife.
The incident
On the night of June 23, 1993, Lorena Bobbitt cut off her husband's penis with a kitchen knife as he lay sleeping in their Manassas, Virginia, home. She then drove off with the severed appendage and flung it out her car window. Police performed a diligent search and located it, and it was then surgically reattached.
In statements to police, she explained that she had cut off the penis because her husband was "selfish" and "wouldn't give her an orgasm."
She was charged with "malicious wounding," but was found not guilty in 1994 [link] on the grounds that she had experienced temporary insanity causing an irresistible impulse to wound her husband, who had also physically abused her. Therefore, she was not liable for her actions. She was, however, ordered to spend 45 days in a psychiatric hospital.
John also faced charges stemming from accusations of assault against Lorena. He was acquitted of a charge of marital sexual assault in September 1993.
Some feminist political activists and Ecuador residents were vocal supporters of Lorena during the media ordeal.
Since the incident
Lorena and John were divorced in 1995, after 6 years of marriage.John
After his reattachment surgery, Bobbitt briefly became a porn star, in part to finance the operation to reattach his penis. He appeared in three movies: John Wayne Bobbitt … Uncut, Buttman at Nudes a Poppin' 2, and Frankenpenis. In Frankenpenis, Bobbitt played a character who was made with spare parts (like the monster in Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's "Frankenstein") and whose penis inexplicably comes off during a rousing session of intercourse. Bobbitt then moans, "Oh no, not again".
In 1996, John Bobbitt moved to Nevada, where he has worked in a brothel. While there had a brief fling with Taylor Hayes, who subsequently moved to Los Angeles and became a Vivid Girl for adult pornographic studio Vivid Entertainment. He also worked as a bartender, a limousine driver, a tow truck operator and a minister in a Las Vegas church.
In 2001, he briefly married Dottie Brewer (February 3 – February 26). A year later, on March 23, 2002, he married Joanna Ferrell.
In 2002, John Bobbitt was scheduled to fight Joey Buttafuoco on Fox Network's Celebrity Boxing. The event was cancelled, after Bobbitt was arrested for domestic abuse. [link].
After two trials for domestic abuse against Ferrell in 2004 - one ending in conviction for Bobbitt and the other in acquittal - he was arrested for a third offense in September 2005. Days after the third incident, he filed for a divorce from Ferrell. On February 8, 2006, a municipal judge found Bobbitt not guilty, due to insufficient evidence [link].
Lorena
Lorena resumed the use of her maiden name, Gallo. In December 1997, she was charged with assault for punching her mother, Elvia Gallo, as her mother watched television [link]. Four months later, Lorena was found not guilty, as the judge did not find the evidence compelling enough to convict her [link].Trivia and popular culture
The case created a popular sensation at the time and was a frequent subject of jokes and joking references. It even seemed possible for a while that the Bobbitt name might enter the language. For example, Boston Globe architecture critics wrote in 1994 that "An architectural Bobbitt case, Memorial Hall at Harvard University has lacked [the top part of] its tower since September 1956." However, public memory of the case has receded.This incident was used to inspire the third verse to "Weird Al" Yankovic's parody song, "Headline News", where we hear the words "Once there was this guy who made his wife so mad one night that she cut off his wiener". The incident also inspired the Tribe 8 song "Castration Song #22," with its chorus of "Lorena don't take no shit." There is also a song by the crust punk band Ballast, called "Lorena Bobbitt".
Brad Pitt referred to the incident in the 1999 movie Fight Club. In the first bar scene, Pitt said "Hey man, it could be worse; a woman could cut off your penis while you're sleeping, and toss it out the window of a moving vehicle."
Mention of the incident is also made in the 2004 re-make of film The Ladykillers in which Gawain MacSam (Marlon Wayans) exclaims "It's like that dude whose wife cut his dick off and threw it on the freeway!".
World Wrestling Entertainment Superstar John Cena mentions this in a freestyle rap to Chris Benoit on Friday Night Smackdown.. "Yo, I can't skate, but I still play with my pucks and stick. I have them call you John Bobbitt because I cut off your [mic raise]"
Bizarre from the rap group D12 mentions in the song Rap Game "I'm too fucking retarded, I don't give a fuck about my dick, that's why I'm dating Lorena Bobbitt"
See also
- Penectomy
- Bobbit worm, an aquatic worm named after Lorena Bobbitt.
External links
Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
- Documentation of the story from Court TV
- *[Chapter 1]
- *[Chapter 2]
- *[Chapter 3] (more general information about reattaching a severed penis, and not specific to the Bobbitt case)
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.