What Mrs Bobbitt did next

Lorena Bobbitt's story is the stuff of barrio legend, proof that in America grit and guile can still bring golden opportunity.

As an Ecuadorian immigrant, Bobbitt got hers when she cut off her husband's penis in a rage. The husband was John Wayne Bobbitt, perfectly named for his subsequent role as male hero of White Trash culture.

Her defining act took place on the steamy Virginia night of June 23, 1993. Lorena was 23, newly minted as an American by marriage. John Wayne was 26 and had been discharged from the Marines.

Both became instant celebrities. Even as surgeons stitched Bobbitt's penis back together - police found the severed half by the side of the road - a new word went into the language: to Bobbittise. The media leapt into a new era of broadcast freedom: 'penis' became a word for the front pages and unblushing stories to camera.

Now Lorena is being celebrated for 'reinventing' herself as a happy mother of a two-year-old girl with a 'fiancé' of 14 years standing, as a hairdresser dabbling in estate agency on the side, and, best of all, as the founder of a new charity called Lorena's Red Wagon, devoted to helping abused women.

In that lies the legend for the barrio. Lorena's success comes from an instinctive understanding of the Gringo mind. The spitfire Latina saw that the best way out of the mess was to play the victim. Even now, the Bobbitt case is credited with taking the national debate on marital rape and domestic violence to a new level.

On the fatal night, Bobbitt (pictured left in 1994) rolled home drunk and found his young wife Lorena asleep in bed. Bobbitt helped himself in what he considered to be the way of the real man, and fell asleep snoring. Lorena went into the kitchen for a drink of water, saw the 12-inch filleting knife on the counter and got even with John Wayne in one stroke.

Both were charged: she with malicious wounding and he with rape. Bobbitt was found not guilty. Lorena was found not guilty on grounds of temporary insanity. On her arrest she had told the cops: "He always have orgasm and he don't wait for me to have orgasm. He's selfish." She became a feminist icon.

Bobbitt went on a celebrity rampage, a John Wayne for the times. He formed a band called The Severed Parts. It failed. He moved to Las Vegas and thought he was going to be a porn star. He made three movies but failed again even after more surgery for an extension.

Bobbitt ran up a rap sheet for hitting women and trying to steal $140,000 worth of clothes from a boutique. He gets by as a bartender, limo driver and removal man.

Lorena got a conviction for assaulting her mother, punching her in a fight as they watched television. But that, too, is behind her now. "When I was married, I was really naïve," she says. "But my self esteem is a lot better than it was years ago. I grew a lot. I learned to cope with this."

Now that's the American Way. You go, girl! ·