In the early morning hours of June 23 , 1993 , Manassas , Virginia manicurist Lorena Bobbitt creep into the sleeping accommodation she shared with her husband , John Wayne Bobbitt . While John — who had been drinking intemperately — slept , she go along tomutilatehis genitalia with a 12 - inch kitchen knife . When a bibulous John fire up up , the sail were covered in rake ; Lorena ran to her car , tongue and lump of flesh in tow . Not quite sure what to do next , she roll up throw away part of his lance out the window .
The scene was so diseased and so titillating that the news metier could n’t get enough . From the time Lorena execute the amputation to heracquittalseven calendar month afterward , the story of a marriage so upset it ended in venereal disfigurement run almost around the clock .
But reporters had a major hurdle to clean : The wordpenishad never been printed or spoken loud with any geometrical regularity in American news reporting .
They tried euphemism , i.e.male phallus , appendage . When those persist out , The New York Timesfinally assent and began using “ phallus ” in their reporting of the criminal trial . Accordingto journalist Gay Talese , the cobwebby volume of the Bobbitt carnival break one of the last intimate tabu in mainstream culture . Soon after , the wordpenisbegan regularly appearing on former night talk shows and in print .
There was really no other choice . While the Bobbitt case farm issues over domestic furiousness , female empowerment , and even the doorstep for celebrity , the news report always boiled down to that one lurid moment . John Wayne ’s reattached , mostly functional member was — and perhaps still is — the most famous sexual pipe organ in America .
John Wayne and Lorena firstmetin 1988,when the burly 21 - yr - honest-to-goodness Marine walked into a club for enlisted men near Quantico in Virginia and spotted the then-19 - twelvemonth - old , who was carry in Ecuador and raised in Venezuela . They married just months after and patch up in Manassas , where Lorena make in the knockout industriousness and John Wayne worked as a cab driver and bar chucker-out . Friends and relatives of the duo who would subsequently be questioned on the witness pedestal delineate a riotous coupling , one that regard the two separated concisely in 1991 before reconciling .
John Wayne was temperamental and physical with Lorena , a fact that her eventual prosecutors would afterwards admit . Divorce was on the mesa when John Wayne came home the Nox of June 23 , 1993 and when , Lorena aver , he dishonor her . ( In a separate trial , a jury found John Wayne not guilty of warriorlike sexual abuse in the five days precede the attack . ) After falling asleep , he awoke to a maimed phallus , his wife having excised an inch or more of its lower third lot .
Police retrieved the missing flesh and handed it over to emergency doc . Before being bicycle in for a nine - 60 minutes operation to reattach the sever portion , John Wayne said he study suicide .
The surgery was more or less successful — John Wayne afterward recollectedcallinghis mother and enthusiastically telling her he had gotten his first post - operative erection — but set about to have Lorena convicted for the plan of attack were not . In January 1994 , a panel found her not shamed by reason of irregular insanity . The defense argued that Lorena had been so shock by abuse that she do irrationally but not maliciously .
The trial and its outcome seemed to provide metaphoric fuel for ever - present issues regarding gender . Although he had not technically been castrated , John Wayne was certainly emasculated , and in a rather horrendous way — punishment , some conceive , for his deplorable conduct . In defacing his manhood , Lorena seemed to become emblematic of what some women feel like doing to spousal abusers .
Lorena fielded book , movie , and interview offers but largely stay out of the spotlight , return to her maiden name and trying to disappear . ( She was also doom to a 45 - day psychiatric evaluation to make certain she present no danger to the public . ) It was John Wayne who perpetuated his own celebrity , turning what was a sick rape into a story worth monetizing .
First , there was the requisite appearance onThe Howard Stern Showin December 1993 — one of many — in which Stern attempted to fundraise for Bobbitt ’s $ 250,000 in medical and effectual expenses .
Stern and other interviewers were preoccupy with Bobbitt ’s sexual power . As of that December , Bobbitt told Stern , he had not been able to operate in any intercourse ; he lay claim his penis drill hole little evidence of the blast by from a “ slight ” scratch ; it anguish a lilliputian when he shower . He pass water with use of acatheterfor two month follow the process .
The radio panhandling get together with some achiever , although as some commentator remark about from the origin , Bobbitt ’s chance to cash in on his notoriety were almost inevitably in the red light district of the entertainment industry . In 1994 , he signal a hand for $ 1 million to look in an grownup video distributed by Leisure Time Communications titledJohn Wayne Bobbitt : Uncut . A kind of adult biopic , Bobbitt played himself , reenact the attack and then prove his restored intimate ability by engage in intimate act with a successiveness of actresses . In what must be one of the few grownup picture critical review print byEntertainment Weekly , critic Owen Gleibermanobservedthat Bobbitt ’s reconstructed penis had “ no real stitch marks ” but looked as though it “ may have lost an column inch or two . ”
Uncutwas a peculiarity , but Bobbitt was ineffectual to substantiate interest in two follow - up tapes : One was titledFrankenpenisand may have lived up to a viewer ’s prediction of a freakish member , due to a penis expansion surgical procedure John Wayne underwent following the release of the first video recording .
Having use up his potential in pornography , Bobbitt and his member sought other venues . First , he tried his hand at suffer - up clowning . When that failed to pan out , Dennis Hof , owner of the Bunny Ranch bawdyhouse , paid him $ 50,000 a year to be a barman / chauffeur / handyman
, not unlike the way maturate box legends like Joe Louis used to stand up near casino doors so supporter could throw off the hand of a wizard .
At the Ranch , Bobbitt usher in himself to men waiting for prostitutes and sometimes indulged their petition to have him drop down his trouser for a look . Hof did n’t keep him on for long , latercallinghim a “ stupid , lowly - life creep ” and “ tire oaf ” who could n’t keep his hands off of Hof ’s distaff employee .
Bobbitt later found a brief menage in a carnival , alongside a professional insect eater and a man with a snag clapper . Here , too , Bobbitt seemed to go in earn his potential , refusing to be a object for a knife - thrower or get word the art of hammering nail into his nose .
He also appear to have learned small from the consequences of his loutish behavior . In 1999 , he was jailed for push a lady friend into a rampart . In 2005 , he was collar andchargedwith bombardment in relation to an incident involving his newfangled wife , Joanna Ferrell , the third such allegement during their now - defunct marriage . ( He was lateracquitted . ) Theaccusationscost him a gig confront off against Joey Buttafuoco on Fox’sCelebrity Boxing .
presently , Bobbitt has settled in Niagara Falls and works as a limo driver and carpenter . Lorena has establish Lorena ’s Red Wagon , an organization offering aid to woman victimized by domesticated furiousness . Lorena ’s actions in 1993 were mostly unmatched until 2011 , when a California fair sex name Catherine Kieu hire a tongue andseveredher husband ’s penis follow an argument .
The man would not have an opportunity for a Bobbitt - esque reattachment and subsequent triumph lap . Perhaps get word from Lorena ’s mistake , Kieu did n’t merely toss the severed material body aside . She pulverized the penis in their food waste disposal .
