John & Lorena Bobbitt

Oddly enough, Corbett talks about the John and Lorena Bobbitt news from the 90's, as Lucy prepares for her wedding.  Plenty of puns and terrible things, but a possible lesson to learn for the future.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:28

Welcome to What You Missed When You Didn't Exist. I am Corbett and I am 54.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

And I'm Lucy. Twenty-five, five foot ten, and living in Texas.

SPEAKER_00 0:43

Are you running for Congress or preparing for your next bout?

SPEAKER_01 0:47

Um clearly doing my audition for whatever this show is that we do.

SPEAKER_00 0:53

This is the show we do. And what is this show we do? We do for what you missed when you didn't exist. We talk about the time between 1970 and the year 2000, the year that I was alive and Lucy was not.

SPEAKER_01 1:05

Years.

SPEAKER_00 1:05

That whole time of years. The time you missed when you didn't exist. If you'd only existed, you would have known it.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

I mean, I know a lot of stuff because you kind of decided to educate me on old things.

SPEAKER_00 1:20

Well, there's always old things, and today's one of those fun missing things that I've never bothered to tell you because it was terrible. The love story of John and Lorena Bobbitt. Oh my gosh. For anybody who knows this story, you already know and have made the cut. Oh, the pun is there.

SPEAKER_01 1:46

See, but no one knows yet. You're just you're ahead of the game.

SPEAKER_00 1:49

This is honestly terrible, and I feel kind of bad. It's it's terrible on so many levels. John Wayne Bobbitt, who has a pretentious name, we know.

SPEAKER_01 1:58

How is that a pretentious name? What?

SPEAKER_00 2:00

John Wayne was a famous movie actor. Well, it was the name of the famous.

SPEAKER_01 2:04

The Western guy. So that makes him pretentious?

SPEAKER_00 2:07

Because he was called John Wayne Bobbitt. He wasn't called John Bobbitt, he was called John Wayne Bobbitt every time in the news.

SPEAKER_01 2:13

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 2:13

John Wayne Bobbitt. Had to be John Wayne Bobbit. Because there's got to be more than one John Bobbitt, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 2:20

Yep, that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 2:22

So pretentious to a certain level. Was uh he was a U.S. Marine.

unknown 2:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

And he he was working. Well, he's a former U.S. Marine because he was working as a bar bouncer at the time. I'm guessing he was back in the States. The part I'm hazy on, and I really I should have watched the Lorena Bobbitt movie as to how she wound up with this guy. Because everything in the news, I know all the after effects of what happened, but ultimately they were married. Lorena marries John Wayne Bobbitt and becomes Lorena Bobbitt in 1989. They uh they got married. She was an immigrant from Ecuador. Interesting information, knowing that immigrants are terrible people, I guess. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 3:03

Oh, don't go there.

SPEAKER_00 3:04

Why would well this is so this is so terrible. This is honestly like a great example of how being in a bad marriage goes.

SPEAKER_01 3:14

Brigger warning.

SPEAKER_00 3:16

And just well, just to point it out, Lucy, you're getting married probably about the time or a little a week or two after the the episode this episode comes out. So I did pick this a little on purpose or subconsciously on purpose.

SPEAKER_01 3:33

I'll tell Nicoa to watch out.

SPEAKER_00 3:36

Yeah. No, I hope Nakoa's not this bad. The gist of the the cutoff joke is they get to a point where they cannot stand each other, or he she cannot stand him. He comes in and rapes her on a pretty regular basis, because there's a point where you don't want to have sex with your spouse for one reason or another, and if you just do it anyway, not so cool. And apparently he is a pretty abusive person as well, aside from all that. So in the middle of the night, sh after he had come back from the bar and had raped her, she went to the kitchen, got a Ginzu knife, cut off his penis, left, and threw it out in the field.

SPEAKER_01 4:13

Epic.

SPEAKER_00 4:14

Yep. So that's a way to announce a divorce.

SPEAKER_01 4:20

Yeah, and they didn't get divorced until two years later, which is wild.

SPEAKER_00 4:25

There was an awful lot of police issues going on with this. I mean, I know it's hard to believe. The police were called. This is the really weird part. The police caught her, she told them where she threw it out. They went out and swept the place to get the penis, got it back to him at the hospital, and had it reattached. Wow. So it's not like he was totally out one penis. It's just, you know, he had it not attached for a while there. I am surprised he lived because I would expect an awful lot of blood to come pouring out, depending on that blood, but you can still survive a lot of blood loss. It would definitely be pretty traumatic, I would think.

SPEAKER_01 5:06

Well, yes. That's a different thing.

SPEAKER_00 5:10

Now, there was a trial that obviously followed that because you know she basically cut off a man's penis, which is considered a crime, I guess, in some states.

SPEAKER_01 5:19

Attempted murder, probably. Just just generally speaking.

SPEAKER_00 5:24

She was found actually, just to jump ahead a little more, she was found not guilty. Nice in the trial. But on the account of insanity, not not because of the the abuse, they they were able to prove all the abuse and the rape and all the stuff that went with it, but ultimately still had to defend on insanity uh to get her out of it. But they did win, as far as she did not go to jail. No, she still went to jail for a time because they had to hold her. Well, yeah, but that's not like she definitely had a history of violence, and you know, she went to uh an asylum to get cleared and everything that went with it. She didn't come out great. He had to spend all these medical bills and stuff to get stuff reattached.

SPEAKER_01 6:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:09

Which this is oh, this is uh one of the funnier things. I knew about the second thing he did because he he made a band called The Severed Parts.

SPEAKER_01 6:18

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 6:19

To help pay for making to get his stuff reattached, which they did not make enough money.

unknown 6:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:26

And so he immediately went and did a porn called John Wayne Bobbitt Uncut.

SPEAKER_01 6:33

No.

SPEAKER_00 6:36

But that still didn't get him enough money, so then he did a second porn called Franken penis.

SPEAKER_01 6:41

No.

SPEAKER_00 6:42

I didn't know about the second one. I remember the first one just because, like, that's terrible, but sure. Okay. Why? So he's out all this money and time and effort, and she gets away scot-free. Well, to be fair, she was also abused for years to the point that she cut off his penis instead of, I don't know, filing for a divorce.

SPEAKER_01 7:02

Or just leaving. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:07

That's kind of on the terrible side. So around 93 when all this happened, if I remember right. 92 or 93?

SPEAKER_01 7:14

93, I think. Was what you said earlier.

SPEAKER_00 7:18

Yeah, 93. There's so many numbers getting thrown at me because like 96 is when a lot of this kind of got sort of solidified. After Lorraina Bobbitt was free, uh allowed to leave, she went back to Ecuador and was welcome with open arms. She was able to come to and from.

SPEAKER_01 7:34

She didn't lose her citizenship or anything.

SPEAKER_00 7:37

No, this was 90, what, 96, 97? And honestly, most people were pretty sympathetic to her.

SPEAKER_01 7:43

Oh, that's good.

SPEAKER_00 7:44

Because you don't usually cut off somebody's body part because it'd be funny. Although it kind of was. So eh.

SPEAKER_01 7:52

Well, then you better talk to all those serial killers that just like to dismember people.

SPEAKER_00 7:56

That's true. Well, she had a little more motivation to do it. And I think I will say this is the this is the part that's that's kind of sad. No, it is sad. Uh just there's so and there's this is very true to this day. There's so many women that are trapped in marriages or feel like they can't get out of marriages either because of money or time or effort or whatever, and they resort to, well, cutting something off or doing something crazy. And I'm you know, I'm sorry if that shocks you that I would call her crazy, but technically that was her defense in the trial.

SPEAKER_01 8:29

So Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:30

That's yeah, in the zone. And he didn't exactly walk away all smelling daytime daisy fresh. He wound up in a bunch of like reality show type s things. His sympathy was more or less parading him out like circus freak. You know, look at the guy with the thing that reattached.

SPEAKER_01 8:47

So no dignity left.

SPEAKER_00 8:49

Not I wouldn't think so, but yeah, uh, they're both still alive as far as I'm aware. Uh last I had heard. I I'm sorry to bring you down as far as like, yeah, this is a bad thing, because it that was a bad thing. It was a bit of a shock. It was just crazy. It was crazy times, and people felt like they needed to go to crazy extremes to deal with it.

SPEAKER_01 9:12

Yeah. Was this the same time as the OJ case?

SPEAKER_00 9:15

Uh yeah, pretty close.

SPEAKER_01 9:17

Well.

SPEAKER_00 9:17

It was about when reality was about to get really real.

SPEAKER_01 9:22

Oh yeah, because reality TV was starting to like really be a thing at this point.

SPEAKER_00 9:27

Yep. And that's where John Wayne Bobbit started getting more attention because they could bring him on as hey, look, he's the guy who got the thing cut off. It seems like with her, she more or less just backed away and didn't want to deal with any of it or be a part of any of it. She was supportive for like uh women's abuse groups and stuff. So it wasn't like she just gave up and ran away from life, but she just didn't want to deal with any of it. And I very much can relate to that because I don't want to deal with any of his life most of the time anyway. It can be a thing, and of course, it was in everything at the time, because I mean that's as far as like well, it was it was just uh such a a novelty bit. I know that sounds terrible, but it was such a she cut off his penis. That's very much taking the power back, if anything.

SPEAKER_01 10:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:17

It was popping up in pop culture as a huge bit.

SPEAKER_01 10:21

I think uh oh yeah, they did it in Grey's Anatomy.

SPEAKER_00 10:23

Oh, did they? Yeah. I think the bigger problem was a lot of people started popping up copying uh what she was doing or what you did. Oh, like, no, see, I I pulled I pulled the Bobbit and uh like no you didn't. You just wanted to mutilate somebody because you really wanted to. I'm really painting marriage as a terrible thing for you, and I'm sorry, but it's really not as bad as you might think. And I I kind of I kind of expect you will be the one who will be coming out on top if something gets into the Bobbit situation.

SPEAKER_01 10:58

You know, I try my best. You raised me well. You heard it here. You heard it here, folks. Did you know that there's a worm that they named after the Bobbit case? Yes. It's called the Bobbit worm, and it's because the worm has powerful sharp jaws that snap shut like scissors to kill its prey, and so they named it because of how Lorena Bobbit cut off the penis.

SPEAKER_00 11:33

Well, she cut it off with a serrated knife.

SPEAKER_01 11:35

Yeah, he's got sharp scissor-like jaws that attack its prey and often cut it in half.

SPEAKER_00 11:41

I wonder if that's a uh misnomer from the time, because there was the the kind of bit like, oh, she just cut it off with a pair of scissors. Like, no, you didn't. Maybe shears, maybe like hedge trimmers.

SPEAKER_01 11:56

That would be crazy. But that's interesting because I think it I guess doesn't feed into the idea, but there's so many different animals in the wild that eat, like the praying mantis eats their mate to show dominance. Spiders do that, other bugs do that. Disability control. I don't know. Maybe we're getting back to our more animalistic selves.

SPEAKER_00 12:24

Well, maybe. Well, I I think with her situation it was bad, and she just felt like she didn't know how to get out of it. Um, I it could be that that was her uh mentality and she was just thinking like that, and maybe she was just crazy. But I would wager that that she just got pushed to the point that she didn't know how to to get out of the situation and went with the the extreme version.

SPEAKER_01 12:49

Yeah, that's true. I think it's good, good and bad that we see instances like this where people are overcoming their struggles, especially because it helps to launch things and help feed into things like the Me Too movement that happened, or even men who are experiencing abuse can come open and I mean it's a very vulnerable thing to do, and for that time period, I think going and pleading insanity was probably the best move, so that way she wouldn't get into trouble. Because I mean she's obviously doing fine now. She's on TV and she had a movie come out in 2020. I mean, still terrible, terrible experiences, but obviously it has kind of been helping her out in life a little bit, kind of successful. But I think the goal is before you get married you figure out all these things so that way you don't get trapped in a marriage. I think that's the thing that sucks, is everyone portrays marriage as like, oh, I got the old ball and chain, like trapped, stuck. But I think marriage should be a way for you to think of it as an opportunity to like build bridges and help build each other up rather than restrict each other from doing whatever it is.

SPEAKER_00 14:06

Right. I mean that's ideally the way it should be.

SPEAKER_01 14:08

I know, but I don't think people see it that way. I think people see it as like, ooh, I have a means of either power, control, or security, which in some aspect you kind of want like a little like little bits of it just to help maintain sanity, because that's just part of the human body's homeostasis, is all those things, but it's supposed to be a partnership that's equal.

SPEAKER_00 14:37

Maybe it goes back to your thoughts on uh you know animalistic mentality. Your mom was saying that the cat the cat always feels like she needs to eat from the bowl when we're right beside her. And she won't eat from the bowl unless we're right beside her, because um she said it's a cat thing. I I would have to talk to cat people to know for sure, but apparently it's a it's a trust issue that they expect you to protect them while they eat. So they're not because they're vulnerable at that point.

SPEAKER_01 15:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:08

It's kind of does your cat do the same thing?

SPEAKER_01 15:11

Um she will do it with water. She doesn't do it with food. She'll eat food whenever. But it'll typically be whenever we're in the kitchen or in our living room that she will go and do that. She doesn't really do it separately. Nakoa calls her a pervert because she likes to try to come into the bathroom whenever we're in the bathroom, or she'll watch you in the shower. But I think it's like a trust thing. Like she knows that we're vulnerable at that moment, and so like she does the protection.

SPEAKER_00 15:42

Then you get to protect when the other way around.

SPEAKER_01 15:45

I don't know what she's gonna really protect you from, but hey, she protects us from the evil croc cockroaches.

SPEAKER_00 15:51

Okay. She gets you got a lot of cockroaches for Houston. That's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 15:57

It's not that bad.

SPEAKER_00 15:58

But I mean it's it's in that same order that you you get married because you want somebody to to protect you when you're at your vulnerable, and then in turn you protect them when they're at their vulnerable spot.

SPEAKER_01 16:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:09

The Lorraine Bobbit definitely betrayed that vulnerability.

SPEAKER_01 16:13

Well, he did it first.

SPEAKER_00 16:16

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, and that's where it all kind of goes calls into play. He had a lot of sympathetic people on his side though. Don't don't think he didn't.

SPEAKER_01 16:24

Well, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:25

I think he was uh uh he did a lot of touring about oh I was the one who was attacked. Like, yeah, kind of started the attacks yourself. So sorry, man. But that wouldn't come until later, like in the 2000s, when people start going, wait a minute, wait a minute. Maybe he was a jerk. Oh, you think maybe I don't think there was anybody delusional enough to totally think he was completely innocent, but at the same time, he was the he was the weirdo because he had to get fixed. Anyway.

SPEAKER_01 17:00

So silly.

SPEAKER_00 17:01

So I hope your marriage goes well.

SPEAKER_01 17:04

Thanks. Had to learn from the best.

SPEAKER_00 17:08

Uh-huh. And for what you missed when you from what from what for what you missed when you didn't exist, don't get cut off.

SPEAKER_01 17:18

Oh no. No.

SPEAKER_00 17:22

Oh, come on. I couldn't use that pun.

unknown 17:36

I can definitely go to take the mouth in the extension.