John and Lorena Bobbitt
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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.
Image of John Wayne Bobbitt's severed penis being held up in courtContents [hide]
1 The incident
2 Since the incident
2.1 John
2.2 Lorena
3 Trivia and popular culture
4 See also
5 External links
[edit] 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 [1] 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[citation needed] and Ecuador residents[citation needed] were vocal supporters of Lorena during the media ordeal.
[edit] Since the incident
Lorena and John were divorced in 1995, after 6 years of marriage.
[edit] 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 worked in a brothel. While there, he 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. [2].
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 [3].
[edit] 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 [4]. Four months later, Lorena was found not guilty, as the judge did not find the evidence compelling enough to convict her [5].
http://www.fathers.ca/lorena_bobbitt.htm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1830348,00.html
JOHN WAYNE BOBBITT'S NEWEST AND LAST FILM TO BE A ONE TIME ONLY FREE SHOWING
JOHN WAYNE BOBBITT: THE MOST FAMOUS DICK IN THE WORLD WILL BE SHOWN ONE NIGHT ONLY FOR FREE TO THE MEDIA AND GENERAL PUBLIC
It has been awhile since we last talked about the most famous dick in the world, JWB. I had shelved the movie that I made with John all this time because he broke his contract and made me look like an asshole numerous times.. What I plan on doing is having a one time only free showing of the movie. I am trying to secure a Major radio station to hold and sponsor this event.. I am just looking for a chance to show off my film and talents to the media and general public. This will be a free showing. It will be a one time thing, after the showing of the movie it goes back on the shelve. This way not only do I get a chance to get my name out there, it will also kill that dickless wonder that there is no cash for him to try and bleed from me. I do not plan to distribute the film. To be truthful the only way I would ever get rid of this film would be to a private collector, that way I would be done with this once and for all.
Don’t know what the hell film I am talking about? Well here is all the dirt.
This film has been featured in, Wireless Flash News Service, AVN, National Enquirer TV, NY Post, Associated Press
Bobbitt Has New Film - Says His First Two
Third Adult Film Mostly Bobbitt, Blonde, and Sex
LAS VEGAS -
"Have you seen John Wayne Bobbitt's first two films and thought that they sucked?" his manager, Robert Yates, asks candidly - before answering the question himself. "So did John, he is actually embarrassed from these films." And the first one was a huge best seller, not to mention a fast one. No matter. The world's most notorious castration victim has a new one, John Wayne Bobbitt: The Most Famous Dick In The World. And Yates is banking on this one being a big seller.
Especially since this could end up being the last product of Bobbitt’s so-far-halting career as an adult film star. Since an incident earlier this year in which a girl friend was said to have tried biting his penis off, Bobbitt has been slowly more unable to perform sexually for great lengths of time. In fact, this third film could well be Bobbitt’s last, er, big bang.
"He can still function sexually," Yates says, "but never again to this extent."
And that extent would be? Yates says the film was edited down to a two-hour film from about eight hours worth of footage, with an hour and 45 minutes of the final film actual sex. "Just John and a beautiful young blonde-haired, blue-eyed doing her first movie and every position possible," Yates says. "This film has the first queef ever caught on film."
Bobbitt’s co-star, known for now only as Victoria, is a club dancer for the most part. "I knew her from dancing in clubs," Yates says, "and I thought she had a nice look. And if she goes for a film like this, it could help her career, she's interested in more dancing and hopes to get some magazines, too."
OK, we're curious, too - what on earth is a queef? "Well, it's a kind of vaginal fart," he says. "What happens is, there's a scene where Victoria's lying on her back and the camera is on her vagina, and if you watch the vagina, both lips perk out with a poof of air."
Mostly, if Yates's comments are any indication, both star and manager are banking on what curiosity factor remains of Bobbitt’s aftermath, since his former wife, Lorena, sliced the equipment with which God provided him clean off in the 1990s.
"This is the only film out that shows John's penis after an enlargement surgery gone wrong," Yates says. "Who but John, would be crazy enough to get an enlargement surgery after his penis was cut off? Just the look of John's penis alone is a reason to buy the movie. It is double the size it was in John's first film."
And, he adds, John Wayne Bobbitt: The Most Famous Dick In The World should answer some of what he says are the most frequently asked questions about Bobbitt’s equipment now - as in, how does it look, how can he perform and for how long, how and can he climax, that sort of thing.
"As of right now," Yates says, "John's penis is the width of a beer can, it has the length of a beer can and a half, from the base it goes straight, curves out to the left, then straight again, then curves to the right." The widening, he says, came from a procedure involving grafting fat tissue from his back around his penis.
Yates says there is also a documentary available in which Bobbitt describes every aspect of his life, including the, er, cutting edges, one presumes.
As for the rest of the film, aside from the sex? "You would not believe some of the things that come out of John and the girl's mouths," he says.
By contrast, Bobbit's first two films suffered from his sexual shortcomings previously, largely due to complications from trying to reattach and rejuvenate his mutilated penis. "This is John and Victoria straight through for this one," Yates says. "This is every position they could think of, we shot it. This really shows off."
The John Wayne Bobbitt News Tip of the Day
Robert Yates writes: "Have seen John Wayne Bobbitt's first two films and thought that they sucked? So did John, he is actually embarrassed from these films. Keep in mind that his first was largest selling Adult Film of it's time.
John's new film is "John Wayne Bobbitt: The Most Famous Dick In The World." This is the only film out that shows John's penis after an enlargement surgery gone wrong. Who but John, would be crazy enough to get a enlargement surgery after his penis was cut off? Just the looks of John's penis alone is a reason to buy the movie. It is double the size it was in John's first film.
This film answers some of the most frequently asked question about John's penis. What does it look like? Can he perform? How long? Can he ***? You will get the answers to all of the question's and more.
As of right now John's penis is the width of a beer can, it has the length of a beer can and a half, from the base it goes straight, curves out to the left, then straight again, then curves to the right.
It is a 2 hour film, edited down from 8 hours, I only used the best footage. Out of 2 hours, 1 hour and 45 min is actual sex. The film is Just John and a beautiful young blonde hair blue eyed girl doing her first movie and every position possible. This film has the first queef ever caught on film.
You would not believe some of the things that come out of John and the girl's mouth. It is a must see...and a must hear! " Thanks, Robert R. Yates, CEO Risky Business Inc.
Hello, My name is Bill Hoffman, I am representing Victoria. In case you do not know who Victoria is, she is the girl that helped set up John Wayne Bobbitt. She is the one who had sex with John while his Manager filmed it without John knowing. Victoria is a beautiful 20 year old blonde, who is a professional dancer. What she is looking to do is interviews over the movie, TV, PRINT, and Radio hoping that it will lead to a photo spread in big magazine. That way she can become a Headline Dancer and eventually Star in her own film. Victoria will give all details in the interview, how she set John up, what it was like with him, How she lasted all that time, and what she is planning on doing in the future. Victoria had given me your contact info, She a gotten quite a list of numbers from Robert. Unfortunately he only gave her e-mail addresses. If interested contact me at e-mail protected from spam bots. Thanks, Bill Hoffman. e-mail protected from spam bots Gene sez: "Those e-mail addresses aside, thanks for giving me the exclusive."
Coming soon The Best Porn Film Ever, Starring John Wayne Bobbitt
The only thing is John does not know about it yet. How you ask? Well, let me give you the scoop. It isn't actually a porn film but more of a home movie, in the way I set John up. With help from a girl and plenty of hidden cameras I caught John in the act on tape. I was hoping to get a half hour of film I ended up getting 6. I have enough to edit and make a great movie out of it. This will really answer some questions about John that everyone has asked him in every interview ever. Let me give you the details.
The entire time I have been working with John, the only thing people seemed to care about is if he is going to make another porn. After all he has the World's Most Famous Penis. John refuses the idea of doing another adult film. He says he has already shown the world what they needed to see. But no one has ever seen John in the state he is now. His penis is deformed it got all bent up and out of whack after the enlargement surgery, which made his penis huge!!! I never seen anything like it. It is the size of a beer can, Just longer. John wants to be famous again well I am going to make his wish come true.
The way I set it up is, I got a pretty 19 year old girl, my age by the way, and a friend of mine, Ray. We had set up a room with camera's hidden all throughout it. I had my friend hide in one room and I hid in the closet. I had told John that I was having a party for him and let him know that I had arranged for some girls to meet him and told to him to be ready for a good time. Apparently he had a great time we were stuck there for over 6 hours. I ended up with enough footage for an entire movie............
John just left a message on my machine and he is flipping out. I guess the dumb bastard just got back from his lawyer. John has been trying to stop the movie from coming out since the day he heard about, but there is nothing he can do to stop it. Early in the week I had sent John a copy of a model release he had signed for photo shoots that day. This is common practice with John, since he is indecisive, I always have him sign a standard contract with all shoots. Like I said John has limited intelligence and I had that stupid **** do some photo shoots for 2 days before he left. The day before I set him up and that day I had figured that he was going away for quite some time and so did he, that's why we were doing photo shoots before he left, plus he had to make a few PICS for his fan club. The release I had him sign was standard form that's says all photo/video/web material can used, reused, published, republished in any way I see fit. The stupid **** is flipping out, he is blaming his lawyer because his lawyer is the one that always told him to make sure you sign photo contracts. John has tendency to sign things without his lawyer taking a look at them first, hell that ****** does not even read them himself. John is threatening to sue me. I left a message on his machine last week and said we should become partners and both make money instead of going to court and losing money. And the ********** called me back and said that he is going to try and stop the film no matter what it takes. He even threatened to kick my *** and take the film from me physically, which I would love for him to try. That way I can beat the **** out of John and catch it on tape that way I can sell that tape too. I tried to be nice to the asshole and cut him on the deal but he is being a little *****. So what I say is **** HIM the movie coming out even if I have to sell it over the Internet, but I have already gotten numerous offers so I highly doubt the Internet will be the route I take. Between me and you, one of the reasons John has said he would never do another porn is because he is afraid that when chicks see his huge freak Dick that they will be afraid to have sex with them. **** that crazy looking cock scared me and all I did was take pictures of it. I think John should be proud of his new huge cock, I mean dam in Uncut his penis was only about 4 inches long erect because he lost a few inches when he had gotten his penis reattached. John hates when I tell that to people
10/20/99
Luke reported on this story last week. Wednesday Page Six gossip column in the New York Post says: JOHN Wayne Bobbitt has been knifed again - this time in the back. Bobbitt's erstwhile spokesman, Robert Yates, says he set up his client with a 19-year-old stripper, secretly video-taped the liaison from a closet, and will soon be selling the home movie to the highest bidder. "John just found out about it last Friday," he tells PAGE SIX's Ian Spiegelman, "and he's been leaving threats on my answering machine ever since. He says stuff like, 'I'm gonna kick your ***,' but I'm hoping John will realize that this will make a lot of money for him." Yates says he doesn't understand Bobbitt's reluctance to follow up his two previous porn roles: "What else can the most famous penis in America do? He tried stand-up comedy and bombed. Now he wants to be an actor but he can't act." Yates says he's already received offers in the "mid-six-figure range" but feels his work is worth a lot more. "Some people are calling it the 'Blair Witch' of porn, but I don't really want to be associated with that movie." And he isn't worried about possible legal ramifications, because he paid the stripper "only for her film work." Besides, he says, "I'm only 20, so there's not much you can take from me." Bobbitt could not be reached.
Writes Yates: The only thing is John does not know about it yet. How you ask? Well, let me give you the scoop. It isn't actually a porn film but more of a home movie, in the way I set John up. With help from a girl and plenty of hidden cameras I caught John in the act on tape. I was hoping to get a half hour of film I ended up getting 6. I have enough to edit and make a great movie out of it. This will really answer some questions about John that everyone has asked him in every interview ever. Let me give you the details. As you may or may not know, I Robert R. Yates, have been working with John Wayne Bobbitt for quite some time. In this time I have given John many opportunities to make something of himself, again. For example, John's comedy career. The week before John's first booking he had gotten stage fright. Then refused to talk to me for about 2 weeks, after he already missed 4 gigs, including Comedywood in Toronto. After that I got an offer for a big movie contract that would have John in the staring role. Well, John had taken the contact number without my knowledge, and tried to do some negotiating himself saying that he was his own manager. He blew that deal. After that John came back to me and asked what I could do. John says he wants to become famous.
The entire time I have been working with John, the only thing people seemed to care about is if he is going to make another porn. After all he has the World's Most Famous Penis. John refuses the idea of doing another adult film. He says he has already shown the world what they needed to see. But no one has ever seen John in the state he is now. His penis is deformed it got all bent up and out of whack after the enlargement surgery, which made his penis huge!!! I never seen anything like it. It is the size of a beer can, Just longer. John wants to be famous again well I am going to make his wish come true. The way I set it up is, I got a pretty 19 year old girl, my age by the way, and a friend of mine, Ray. We had set up a room with camera's hidden all throughout it. I had my friend hide in one room and I hid in the closet. I had told John that I was having a party for him and let him know that I had arranged for some girls to meet him and told to him to be ready for a good time. Apparently he had a great time we were stuck there for over 6 hours. I ended up with enough footage for an entire movie. Which I plan to packaged and sell worldwide with or without John. Any distributors interested can contact me at 716-297-9006 or 716-297-3076 or e-mail at e-mail protected from spam bots.
This movie will answer a lot of question his penis is about 3 times the size it was in "Uncut." We had got some great footage. The girl, Victoria, was great. She really knew how to get John to work the camera. I even had her ask John A few question about his disfigured penis. It is going to be great. John has no idea that he was being taped. Oh and by the way I have gotten the first queef ever caught on tape!
Luke talked to Robert Yates at 11:30 AM.
Luke: "Surely John has heard about this by now?"
Rob: "Oh yeah. John heard about it on Friday when I did the Wireless Flash News Service. Since then I've been getting messages on my machine from 'I'm going to kick your *** when I see you,' to 'I'm going to kill you when I see you,' to 'you better run,' to 'I'm going to have my lawyer take care of you.' But I'm thinking that once money starts rolling in, I'll be able to give John a cut of it and hopefully have him come back. I'd love to shoot some more films with him."
Luke: "Is he a good performer?"
Rob: "He was amazing. I haven't gotten along with John in the past, but I have to give credit where credit is due. He could really perform. I don't know if you've seen his first two [porn movies]... Uncut was his reattachment surgery. One thing John doesn't like to talk about, and will usually deny it, but when John had his reattachment, he lost about four inches of his penis. That's why in Uncut it is only about three inches along when erect. Frankenpenis is the enlargement surgery and there really aren't any sex scenes [featuring John's penis]. It was just a week after surgery and they just wanted to show what it looks like... It's all freshly scarred and stitches... He wasn't supposed to wear any tight clothing for a year after that. But a month later he was trying to do a modeling gig and was wearing tight jeans and it deformed his penis.
"Right now the public has never seen what John's penis looks like now. It's about the width of a beer can and goes about the length of a beer can and a half. It'll go straight, bends to the left, straightens out, and bends to the right, then straightens out again. It is pretty crazy looking. The reason is because of the fat. They took fat cells from his *** and they wrapped them around his penis. It looks like a regular penis but wrapped around in fat. That's what gives it its girth.
'This [the secret filming last month] was the first time I've seen John get an actual erection. He's taken photo shoots before but he's never come up with a real hardon. I was amazed. It took him about 30-45 minutes to finally get aroused, but once he did he put on quite the show."
Luke: "And he did not know you were taping?"
Rob: "He had no clue whatsoever. There are scenes where John is doing her doggie style and he starts flexing his mucles and doing different poses. He says some crude stuff to the girl. She does a lot of queefs, where she expels air from her vagina. John makes comments that are offensive. That she's full of hot air, that she's having a farting good time.
"I think I have the first queef ever caught on camera. I've never seen one before. I have surveillance cameras placed around the room and there's this one part where John gets up on top of her and there's this closeup on her vagina, and then it just puffs out and the lips expand and come back.
"Another time she's lying on her back and she puts her legs on top of her head and John goes to insert his penis and she farts right on him. John pushes her back and says, what the hell is that?
"I taped this last month. John had to go back to Nevada for family business. I told him that I was having a going away party for him. And I had a friend's hotel. He gave me a couple of rooms. And in one room I set up all these cameras. And in the next room was the monitors and other equipment."
Luke: "How smart is John?"
Rob: "Whew, I don't know if you've ever talked to John but not very smart at all. He's got limited intelligence. Loraina [Bobbitt] cut off his penis and he's still trying to go back out with her. He's still trying to talk to her. On the anniversary [would've been their ten year wedding anniversary], John was calling her up at her nail salon, trying to get back together with her and smooth things out. That's the mentality John's got. I'd be wanting revenge... He just wants to settle down with her.
"I've known John since before his penis got cut off. He used to hang out at my father's bar. And then about a year ago, John called me up. I was studying computers at school. And he wanted me to put up a website for him. But he had no representation at the time. I told him that I'd rather take over for you and start managing you."
Luke: "Isn't John a reverend now?"
Rob: "No, that was just a scam."
Luke: "He is able to get it up?"
Rob: "Yes, I hoped to get 30 minutes of footage and I got seven hours total. They take breaks all the time... And every time he'd lose his erection and the girl would have to suck him off.
"One time she's giving John a cube job, a ******* with an ice cube in her mouth, and John goes, man, I've gotten cold ****** before."
Luke: "You gotten any good offers yet?"
Rob: "I've gotten some offers in the mid six figure range but I'm waiting to see what will happen in the next week or two. I've got a few more production companies that will get back to me. And if not, I plan on marketing it and selling it myself."
Luke: "Don't you need a model release from John?"
Rob: "I'm hoping with the money coming in, John will change his mind. If not, I will do whatever it takes. It is some great footage. And right now John can go to court and whatnot but there are always loopholes to get through. I don't care if I have to go to another country where it is legal and sell it there.
"John has no true talent. He has the world's most famous penis. What else is he supposed to do? He's only famous for his penis. He can't act or do comedy..."
The Trials of Lorena Bobbitt
A Study in Media Backlash
By Melissa Weininger
On January 22, a jury in Manassas, Virginia, acquitted Lorena Bobbitt of malicious wounding. Last summer, she cut off her husband’s penis after he raped her, an act of violence to which she had regularly been subjected since they were married in 1989. Unfortunately, the focus of the Bobbitt case has been carefully shifted away from the real problem—violence against women—to masculine sympathy fixed on the cause of the problem—John Bobbitt’s penis.
During Lorena Bobbitt’s trial, both the prosecution and the defense admitted that she had been subject to years of physical and sexual abuse during her marriage, even that she had been raped (a charge of which John had been acquitted). Her response to this situation, proven by her defense to be an "irresistible impulse," was to cut off her husband’s penis. John Bobbitt is a lucky guy; doctors were able to reattach his penis. No one is going to be able to sew Lorena Bobbitt back together.
When Rush Limbaugh asks in Newsweek, "How about leaving the jerk?" he’s missing the point. It is likely that Lorena Bobbitt had no framework in which to understand or deal with her experience. She came to the United States at seventeen from her native Venezuela and married John Bobbitt—the first man she ever dated—only three years later. She probably didn’t know that she had the "legal and social protections" Limbaugh extols; often those "protections" are nonexistent or inadequate anyway. There is too little space in shelters for all the women who need them: Sarah Buel, a Massachusetts lawyer who works with victims of domestic violence, points out that there are now three times more animal shelters than shelters for battered women in the US; and the legal system, especially for an immigrant with limited English speaking ability, can be mysterious and inaccessible. As for "leaving the jerk"—not such great advice, considering that the majority of female victims of homicide are women who tried to leave their abusers. Lorena Bobbitt could easily have perceived her abusive marriage as inescapable, a situation of such unbearable pressure that there were no conventional solutions.
Despite the obvious severity of Lorena Bobbitt’s situation, all the media-generated hoopla has centered on John Bobbitt’s severed genitalia. Everyone is upset because it was a penis that was cut off, not a breast (as happens all the time to cancer patients) or a clitoris (which commonly happens in other parts of the world to little girls); people are concerned about the near-castration, not the forced penetration. Women are maimed and beaten and killed by their boyfriends, lovers, and husbands every day, and no one cares. According to FBI statistics, in the United States, a woman is raped every three minutes, and a woman is beaten every eighteen seconds. Now one man has had his penis cut off, and everyone is concerned about domestic violence.
But this is the kind of domestic violence that almost never occurs. What Lorena Bobbitt did (or other kinds of retaliation against batterers) happens rarely, but what was done to her is commonplace. John Bobbitt is not the victim in this situation; he is a perpetrator of the most revolting kind of violence whose victim retaliated in self-defense.
In fact, by severing her husband’s penis, Lorena Bobbitt was acting out a fairly normal response to a completely abnormal situation, a pattern common to sufferers of long-term physical and sexual abuse. Long-term abuse is so traumatic that it creates a situation (especially in the closed environment of a marriage) in which what is conventionally considered normal no longer exists. Lorena Bobbitt’s world had been disordered as a result of her husband’s abuse, and in such an aberrant situation, some form of violent retaliation is not a particularly strange response. Of all the women now in prison for violent crimes (less than ten percent of the entire female prison population) ninety-nine percent were convicted of a crime committed against a batterer. And to choose a penis as the locus for this retaliation is not so odd, since that was the weapon with which much of the violence against Lorena Bobbitt was perpetrated.
Because of its sensational quality, this case has perhaps gotten more press than any other case involving violence against women—even the Mike Tyson or William Kennedy Smith rape trials. But as in those "male celebrity rapes woman" cases, the uproar has not been about the abuse endured by Lorena Bobbitt; it has been about her poor husband’s severed penis. In fact, John Bobbitt’s trial for the rape of his wife wasn’t even televised, while Lorena’s trial has become a media orgy. Especially disturbing is the notion, most frighteningly and succinctly stated by Vanity Fair, that "Lorena is, after all, a property now." Certainly Vanity Fair itself is testimony to this sad assertion; accompanying its article about her in the November issue are photographs of Lorena Bobbitt wet and dripping in a bathing suit. In lieu of being subject to her husband’s violence, Lorena Bobbitt has become fair game for the, media, comedians, and the profit-minded entrepreneurs that Newsweek calls "Bobbitteers."
The trend towards "Bobbitteering" is an indication of how rarely violence against women is taken seriously, and it functions to siphon serious attention away from a case which could be a valuable tool for education about domestic violence and its potent psychological effects. Instead, Lorena Bobbitt has become a joke: buttons calling for "Lorena Bobbitt for Surgeon General," T-shirts autographed by John Bobbitt himself that are emblazoned "Love Hurts," and snide jokes all devalue her experience and the importance of both her own trial and that of her husband (who was acquitted of rape). These jokes are also a subtle way of further detracting from the legitimacy of Lorena Bobbitt’s claims of violence and self-defense.
Cynthia Heimel has it backwards when she writes that with "the media’s insistence that she [Lorena Bobbitt] embodies feminism, Lorena could start her very own backlash." The backlash already exists, and media treatment of the Bobbitt case is only symptomatic of a compulsion to cast feminism in a dark and dangerous light. Lorena Bobbitt is literally the typical "castrating woman," an idea that reinforces bogus male fears of emasculation at the hands of unchecked female power. A cartoon in Newsweek depicting Lorena Bobbitt holding her hand out to her husband—who is looking down his pants—and asking, "Call it a Draw?" is a perfect example of these disproportionate fears. In the cartoon, Lorena is taller than John—in reality she’s nine inches shorter and ninety-eight pounds lighter—and it’s obvious why she’s grown so much: she’s gained a formidable power by taking what John’s looking for in his pants. Lorena Bobbitt is still five feet two, but she now looms large in the male public’s imagination, knife in one hand, penis in the other.
But Lorena Bobbitt isn’t really the empowered one, or even the winner, in this case. Her confinement is not over: for the next month, she’ll be held at a mental hospital for tests. She has been painted as a dangerous, crazed, sexually frustrated woman. But in reality, it is men like John Bobbitt, and public neglect of important issues like violence against women, that are dangerous. Media and public treatment of the Bobbitt case reveals a tragic case of domestic violence, a testament to the need for more education about violence against women, and a study in backlash.
2006-11-08 12:21:58
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answer #1
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answered by Anonymous
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