Slice of life. (case of marital sexual abuse and malicious wounding between John Wayne Bobbitt and his wife Lorena) (Editorial)

The case of the Virginia man whose wife sliced off his penis has been the subject of sick humor, but it is turning serious in more ways than one. John Wayne Bobbitt's wife, Lorena, claims he raped her; she took her revenge with the filleting knife after he drifted to sleep. She has been charged with malicious wounding, he with marital sexual abuse. (By a miracle of modem medical science, his organ has been surgically reattached.)

Not surpriseingly, the case has been caught up in the contemporary ideological struggle. The wife has been hailed by feminists as a Thelma &…