WARNING GRAPHIC CONTENT: The surgeon who succeeded in getting his patient to urinate normally, said that men feel ’emasculated’ by the story, while women feel ’empowered’
It was an act that would “send a chill through every man in the world” when one wife snapped after he husband returned home from a night drinking.
Using just the light from their fridge, Lorena Bobbitt grabbed a knife and cut off her husband’s penis.
Hospital staff were stunned when John Wayne Bobbitt walked into the emergency room at 5am with blood soaking his hands and lower half.
Underneath the red sheet John had “just testicles where the penis would have been, a red substance. It looked like a nice, even, straight cut,” police officer Cecil Deane testified. One officer refused to touch John’s “appendage” when he eventually found it. James Sehn, the surgeon who succeeded in getting his patient to urinate normally, said men feel “emasculated” by the story.
It would become a “wake-up call”, according to critic, Camille Paglia, who added “it has to send a chill through every man in the world.”
At the time Lorena Bobbitt appeared on a double page spread for Vanity Fair. More recently she has produced her own documentary telling the story from her perspective.
Lorena , who now goes by Lorena Gallo, was just 24 when a long period of alleged domestic abuse culminated in what her lawyers called an act of self defence.
She met John after moving to America at just 17 to stay with family. He joined her at her table when she went to a club for enlisted men. John was well presented, and by many accounts, handsome.
Lorena told Vanity Fair: “My English wasn’t too good, so I really feel frustrated because I guess he couldn’t understand me. And I couldn’t understand him either. He mumbles.”
They dated for a period, while she was 21 and he was 26 and later married. Lorena says just a month into their marriage the first alleged instance of abuse took place.
Lorena told John she wanted to go out with him and his cousin, who had a drug issue. On their way home she says John drove back very fast. Lorena said: “I said to him ‘Oh my God, we’re going to crash,’ and he would do it on purpose. I hold the steering wheel very tight and John would push me. I said, ‘John, don’t do that.’ That’s when he hit me the first time. He punched me. I was crying the whole time.”
She claims this was the first instance in a torrent of alleged abuse. When they got home she claimed John attacked her. She said: “He grabbed my hair and slapped me, he kicked me to the wall.”
Another time they fought over a Christmas tree. Lorena alleged: “He started using some technique that he teaches the Marines. That hurts a lot because my arm was twisted. He was just hitting me. Hitting me in my chest, my arms.” John’s lawyer Greg Murphy denied the incident.
Once, in February 1991, after she called the police on consecutive days, Lorena filed a complaint accusing John of choking her. John countered she had kicked him in the groin. Both cases were dismissed.
Their neighbour, Ken, a pastor, said he tried to counsel John but added: “I will extend a helping hand to people that respond to it. But there is a quote from the Bible ‘don’t cast your pearls before swine.”
Lorena bought a tape recorder and used it to gather enough evidence of his abuse for a divorce case. John found the device and Lorena said he attacked her. John remembered the argument over the tape, but denied attacking or raping Lorena.
At this point, Lorena said the stress of her situation had started to affect everything. She said: “I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t eat. People were complaining about my work.” She went to her doctor, who referred her to a women’s abuse hot line. Lorena says she spoke to someone who advised her to seek a protective order to keep John away from her.
Lorena said she remembers waking up between 3am and 3:30am and asked John if he had been into work that day. “No, I went out,” he said. He later told police he had been barhopping and he had had five beers and several shots.
Lorena went back to sleep but then gives a harrowing account of what she says happened next.
She said: “The next thing I remember, he was on top of me. I said, ‘No, get off of me. I don’t want to have sex.’ And he wouldn’t get off of me. … I was fighting and I just grabbed my pants. … I heard my underwear rip. And his chest was really on me. And he’s heavy. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t scream. … I couldn’t even move.” She said he continued to rape her.
She went to the kitchen to get a glass of water. “The refrigerator light was on,” she says. “The door was really wide open. … It was just so many things together. I was scared. … I was physically hurt. I was feeling hurt. I don’t know. It was everything together. I couldn’t describe it. I don’t know the words to describe it. . . . The first thing I saw was a knife, when I turned. I grabbed that knife and, um, I went to the bedroom, and, and he was there, I guess, and he kind of, like, moved or something. I don’t know. And I took the sheets off and I cut him.
“I remember many things. I was thinking many things. I was thinking the first time he hit me. I was thinking when he raped me. I was thinking so many things, just really quick. I don’t know. … I just wanted him to disappear. I just wanted him to leave me alone, to leave my life alone. I don’t want to see him anymore.”
Lorena said she “cut” John. “I remember when I screamed, I saw, I saw that thing. And so I remembered what I saw then and I said I realized that was what I cut. “
Lorena went to her boss who told her she should tell the police. When they got to the station, the police asked where the “body part” was. “I just said the body part was close to the stop sign at 7-Eleven somewhere. I threw it away. I screamed when I threw it away. I mean, I screamed.”
To many, John’s reaction was unexpected. He had been telling neighbors and punters at the local bar that he would be rich and famous. He joked that instead of having a 12-inch member, he would have to make do with 11 inches. Lorena’s lawyer Jim Lowe rubbished this number, saying “the photograph did not reveal anything of that magnitude.”
However, Lorena said she was left traumatised. “I have bad dreams,” she said. “Sometimes I wake up shaking. And when I wake up, I say, ‘Oh my God, this is not over..”
Following Lorena’s accusations John was charged with marital sexual assault, an offense that faced a maximum sentence of 20 years. John claimed he did not remember having sex on the night of June 23 and denied all allegations of abuse and rape.
His trial, which was not televised, spanned two days. He was found not guilty on November 11, 1993, according to The New York Times. Lorena, was subject to a televised trail, she still lives in Manassas with her daughter and partner of over 20 years, according to TIME.
She is an advocate for domestic violence and the founder of the Lorena Gallo Foundation, a nonprofit organization that provides domestic violence and sexual assault prevention, intervention and awareness services in Virginia. Meanwhile, John ventured into the adult film industry.
“One of my missions is to educate the public and young women about the red flags in dating an abuser. I go to colleges and talk to sororities,” she told TIME in 2018.
If you are experiencing domestic abuse, Refuge’s 24-hour National Domestic Abuse Helpline is available on 0808 2000 247