25 years ago, Lorena cut him off, permanently

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On June 23, 1993, a Virginia manicurist named Lorena Bobbitt cut off her husband’s penis with a 12-inch knife. The incident inspired a national media circus: tabloid headlines, late-night gags, “Saturday Night Live” sketches, T-shirts saying “Love Hurts,” a made-for-TV musical, the third verse of a “Weird Al” Yankovic parody track, and a ballad to the tune of the theme from “The Beverly Hillbillies.”

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Bobbitt, who was charged with “malicious wounding” and put on trial, claimed that her husband at the time, John Wayne Bobbitt, had subjected her to years of physical, sexual and emotional abuse, forcing her into sex on his demand. In the early morning hours before the attack, she alleged, he came home drunk and raped her.

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Lorena Bobbitt’s acquittal in January 1994, as The New York Times wrote at the time, “highlighted the plight and rights of abused women.” In the popular imagination, however, she would remain a punchline, the main character in a grotesque, half-remembered American sideshow. The larger context — domestic violence, sexual assault — faded from view, only barely making its way into the national conversation.

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“Lorena Bobbitt was part of a group of women — everyone from Hillary Clinton and Monica Lewinsky to Tonya Harding — who were shamed in the 1990s, women who were what I call ‘bitchified’ — undermined, objectified, and thwarted by a sexist media narrative,” Yarrow told NBC News this week.

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“The abuse of Lorena Bobbitt was ignored in favor of a narrative that celebrated male sexuality and shamed her for being a vengeful perpetrator, instead of shining a light on domestic violence and abuse,”

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The pop culture detritus from the era suggests Yarrow is on to something. The supermarket tabloids and magazine covers seized on the sheer tawdriness of the case. Jay Leno regularly mocked Bobbitt on “The Tonight Show,” riffing in one monologue: “It was so cold in Virginia … that the snowman in Lorena Bobbitt’s backyard had its carrot snapped right off.”

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Her ex-husband, John Wayne Bobbitt, seemed to capitalize on his strange fame. He became a regular guest on “The Howard Stern Show” — the shock jock reportedly attempted to raise funds for his guest’s medical and legal fees — and played himself in a pornographic film titled “John Wayne Bobbitt: Uncut.”

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Lorena Gallo, 47, did not immediately respond to an interview request. She now runs Lorena’s Red Wagon, a foundation that raises money for victims of domestic abuse and their children. “I took my life back and I [gave] myself a second chance”

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