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Can a woman be proud of a name that has become a symbol of severed
manhood? It’s a tricky question, but who can forget what Lorena
Bobbit did? There are various reactions, too. It is evident that
many men are intimidated; but some women are inspired.
Some women in various parts of the world,
including the Philippines, acted on this inspiration and have
replicated what Bobbit did. The men are jittery because of this
admonition, it’s message crystal clear: “Hell has no greater
fury than that of a Bobbit-inspired woman.”
Bobbit’s place in the history of marital
turbulence is assured. It does not matter how the woman cuts off the
penis and what she does with it. She can use a sharp kitchen knife,
a cleaver, or a chain saw. She can then flush it down the toilet,
throw it into the pigsty, or toss it out of the window of a speeding
taxicab. People will always refer to the act of a woman expressing
her anger on the man’s organ as “doing another Bobbit.”
This terrible act (no connection with a measure
filed in Congress) has become part of our lexicon. People will
understand—and the man gets some sympathy from other men—if the
man admits that he has been “Bobbitized.”
In a recent case in Balut, Tondo, Manila, a man
paid dearly for his indiscretion. For pestering his busy wife to
have sex in the morning, he was Bobbitized.
Police said Julieto Bacares, 41, lost his
manhood because he was too demanding despite the wife’s
explanation: “Hinde pwede. I have my monthly period.” But
Bacares thought persistence would bring him a desired result. He was
wrong. If Bacares were a golfer he would have understood it
perfectly if somebody told him: “We cannot play because the ground
is wet.”
According to PO1 Geronimo Gatpolentan of the
Manila Police District Station One, the wife, Claire, was busy
cooking in the kitchen, while Bacares was in the bedroom. Despite
her refusal, he kept calling her to come to the bedroom.
Claire was apparently irked by his persistence.
She went into the bedroom carrying a knife. She went directly to the
source of the conflict, cutting it off without hesitation. It
effectively stopped any more talk about sex.
Bacares ran out of the house screaming like a
mad man. Neighbors said he could not run fast enough because both
hands were cupped on his crotch. Several sympathetic men rushed him
to the hospital.
Investigators said they recovered the knife used
in the crime, but they could not find the severed organ. Claire
later admitted she flushed it down the toilet.
Many men, who tremble in fear thinking about the
consequences of being Bobbitized, said Bacares’ predicament is
“a fate worse than death.” One coffee shop philosopher said:
“It’s worse than murdering someone.”
But police investigators disagree. Nobody can
murder an organ. They said they would file charges of inflicting a
physical injury against Claire. There was no extra charge for
flushing it down the toilet.
Lawyers said that compared to murder, the act of
cutting off the penis is no big deal. Besides, thousands of men,
they said, lose their manhood everyday due to abuse or disease such
as diabetes. In the case of Bacares, he would need to make
adjustments when he pees. Instead of standing in front of the
urinal, he would have to sit on the bowl like his wife.
Once more, Bacares and the others who have been
Bobbitized have disproved the claim that women are helpless against
impositions by the men in the home. We still have to hear that a man
has lopped off the wife’s organ in anger. And we still do not have
a female counterpart for the word Bobbitized.
Claire and the others after her will never get
the notoriety that the original Bobbit gained for cutting off the
first penis in the history of the world. It means any woman can cut
off a penis and the credit would still go to Bobitt. Besides, nobody
would understand if you tell anybody that you have been “Bacarised.”
palaciosjp@sss.gov.ph
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