Sexual abuse, beatings and abuse: Lorena Bobbitt's story is not a joke

A mischievous laugh, a grimace of pain, take the hands to the bads: when the name of Lorena Bobbitt, the joke emerges almost immediately.

Little has been said about the past of domestic violence, badual abuse and psychological terrorism that led her to cut off her husband's penis.

A quarter of a century later, Lorena Bobbitt, now Lorena Gallo, tells his story in an Amazon documentary.

"I knew that they were going to open scars, that I would live a little bit of anxiety by reliving those painful memories that I had practically buried," AFP told AFP. years old, born in Ecuador. "But I did it because I believed that as a woman, mother and survivor, it was my duty to use the voice that many victims of domestic violence did not have." not."

The cases of Lorena and John Wayne Bobbitt have been around the world.

On June 23, 1993, Lorena mutilated her husband's penis with a knife while she was sleeping after he reported having raped her. It was the perfect story for tabloids, for jokes.

Although this also paved the way for a debate until then ignored.

"My case has helped to destigmatize domestic violence, badual abuse and marital rape"said Lorena.

And this led to the adoption in 1994 of a law in the United States on violence against women.

Statistics in this country, however, remain alarming: one in three women are victims of physical or badual violence at some point in their lives; four women are killed each day by their male intimate partner; A woman is abused every 15 seconds.

The documentary Joshua Rofé, produced by the winner of Jordan Peele, was featured in the Sundance Film Festival in January, when movements like #MeToo and Time is up they are still surfing the wave of protest against badual abuse in Hollywood.

"Many victims were able to speak, practically without taboos, and for that I thank God a thousand times," she said.

John is not in my mind

When Rofé offered to do the documentary, Lorena had "buried" many of these memories.

"I did not want to do it," recalls Lorena, who has blond, smooth hair, different from the curly and dark that looked then. "I treated myself because until here the accent [de otras producciones] it was always John, the action [la mutilación], very amarillist, unaware of what I suffered and who hated me a lot"

In four episodes of one hour, Rofé made a complete tour of Lorena's life: from the little girl who left Caracas, where her family lived, to Virginia, in the United States, where she still lives. This covers your marriage, the beginning of abuse, the amputation of the penis, the trial … until the present.

"This is perhaps the most infamous case of a person who has suffered a trauma, where he or she is a victim and where no one asks what motivated this person to do what he or she did," he said. to AFP Rofé, who has compiled, in addition to the protagonist story of Lorraine, that of his ex-husband John Wayne, who claims so far that he has never mistreated her.

"It's a pathological liar," she says without losing a soft, calm tone. "How is it possible that he continues to lie?" He went to prison for domestic violence, not for me, but for other women. "

Rofe also spoke with the police who investigated the incident, the lawyers, the prosecutor, journalists and activists.

He shows fragments of his televised trial, testimonies; Bobbitt's media life, which includes a stage in badgraphy and a reconstructed penis enlargement operation; harbading the media about Lorena, how she tried to rebuild her life, with her new husband and 13-year-old daughter.

"We forgive but do not forget," he says, clarifying: "John is not in my mind, it does not come out like that all of a sudden, I do not live thinking about him."

I did not know how strong you were

Lorena was tried and acquitted for acting in a state of temporary mental disorder.

A practicing Catholic, she has an NGO, Lorena's Red Wagon, dedicated to abuse and spends her days in shelters, where it's not difficult for her to suppress her past to help other women who, like her , are victims. He even finds it therapeutic.

"The more I talk, the more help," he said.

And because everything that has happened makes her what she is today, Lorena does not regret anything.

"How are we going to regret something that you do not have control over?" I did not want to be in this situation, it was not something I was looking for, or that it was nice, "replied he. "It could happen to anyone, and I was one of those who were saved, there are many who do not survive."

For the moment his crusade continues. "My case has helped a lot, but there is still a lot to do."

"Laws are lacking to change," he says, such as the fact that a bad offender can buy a gun. By the way, John Wayne Bobbit has one … and it's not a joke.