Early on the morning of June 23, one John Wayne Bobbitt returned to his apartment just outside Washington. According to his wife, Lorena, he proceeded to rape her. (He denies it.) He then fell asleep. “He always has an orgasm and doesn’t wait for me,” she told police. “It’s unfair.” Lorena went to the kitchen for a drink of water and returned with a 12-inch blade. She pulled back the sheets from her husband and sliced off two thirds of his penis. She then ran out “in a panic” and drove of. On the way, she tossed the penis out the car window into a grassy field at the intersection of Old Centreville and Maplewood in Manassas, Va. John made it to a nearby emergency room. Police officers were sent to the apartment to search for the penis, in vain. Lorena eventually notified police herself of the location. They dispatched rescue personnel, who recovered the penis, packed it in ice and rushed it off to the hospital. In a 9 1/2-hour operation, surgeons successfully reattached the penis. it “looks excellent,” Dr. David Berman told NEWSWEEK. “These aren’t the kind of scars he can show off in public, obviously, but he’s doing very well.”
Both John and Lorena finally made it to court last week, with all the cameras rolling outside. They’ve already sued each other for divorce, so last week was time for prosecutors to weigh in. John, a nightclub bouncer and an ex-Marine, was indicted for marital sexual abuse. Lorena, a manicurist and a Venezuelan emigree, was charged with malicious wounding, and a grand jury is considering whether to indict. Each’ could face up to 20 years in prison. His defense is simple. He says he didn’t assault her and that he’s a victim not only of her violence but now of the legal system. She fully admits her deed but describes it as self-defense. if she stands trial, she will likely call herself a “battered wife” who acted reasonably even with her husband asleep.
The jurisprudential details are surely important for the Bobbitts, but it’s not the law that much interests the public. Medicine marvels at the miracle of reattachment, which is a rare procedure; John’s doctor says he could recover full sexual function in a year or two. Anthiopologists are having a field day; in Thailand, they note, there’s an expression for this: “I’ll throw you to the ducks.” For the media, the case is manna. At the courthouse last week, “it was like a herd of buffaloes,” says John’s lawyer. “Reporters were backing into cars and falling into ditches.” And, yes, there will always be those looking for the cheap laugh. Already there are lists of punning movie titles for the Bobbitt story that would embarrass a sixth grader. Life may yet imitate comedy. The Bobbitts each have their own West Coast agent.
