It has almost become a mythic tale.
Man wakes in the middle of the night, to find his deranged wife sawing off his penis with an 8-inch carving knife. Lorena Bobbitt, brutal mutilator of John Wayne Bobbitt, in her fury, threw the hacked off two-thirds of John’s penis out the window of a car.
The story made headlines around the world.
Heck, even Nasa’s Titan spacecraft acquired the nickname ‘Bobbitt’ because a section of the rocket detached during flight.
A search that epic night finally recovered the penis, and a nine-hour operation, by a urologist, Dr. Jim Sehn and a team, had it reattached. However, Bobbitt wasn’t out of the woods yet. For days, the possibility the penis would still die, turn black and fall off loomed over his head. Miraculously, his penis (and John himself) survived.
Back then, the focus was on the horrific act, then the recovery, then his foray into the world of pornography, most notably Frankenpenis…
But, what’s been lost in the mythos is the reason behind the attack in the first place.
Why?
Why in the world would a wife cut off her husband’s penis?!? What would motivate a person to do something like that to anyone, let alone someone you supposedly loved?!?
Now, with the 25th anniversary of this event news sources are reinvestigating the story. Going beyond the sensationalism (although certainly that is still the draw for the ratings-hungry media) and looking at the back story of the event. The “why.”
Lorena (now Gallo) has always claimed she attacked her husband because he had come home drunk and raped her. John, on the other, said the attack was because he wanted to end the marriage. In a recent interview he stated,
Basically, she said, if I can’t have his penis, then no-one will. She didn’t want me to be with another woman. If I was going to leave her, abandon her or get divorced, then there would be consequences.
The courts acquitted both of them. John was found not guilty of rape and assault. And, Lorena was acquitted by reason of temporary insanity.
But, clearly, one of them (or potentially both, I suppose) are lying.
Something happened that night that made Lorena snap. Will this 25-year reinvestigation help shed light on what really happened, or will it simply be more sensationalism, with no answers and a 21st-century #metoo twist?
What do you think?