Full disclosure, I’m a woman and I hope me posting in you all’s safe space is okay.

I saw a documentary on Amazon Prime entitled “Lorena” about Lorena Bobbitt, the woman who mutilated her husband by severing his manhood and tossing his body part out her car window. I’ve seen a few true crime documentaries in my day and all the ones I’ve personally seen take it from an academic standpoint, highlighting investigation processes, maybe some insightful psychoanalysis of the perpetrator, court proceedings. I was interested and decided to watch.

I got through the first 30 minutes and had to stop because it is absolutely disgusting. When the first few interviews consisted of people acting childish and laughing about the situation I thought it was an anomaly that I was admittedly surprised was allowed into final editing. Even the damn urologist laughed about how he thought they wouldn’t find the husband’s severed appendage and he would have to perform an operation so that he could “pee like a woman for the rest of his life.” And laughed.

Lorena laughed. Investigators laughed. Police laughed. Talk show hosts and new anchors laughed. They made jokes and even had Lorena herself on a talk show to make jokes about it. About a man being mutilated. Regardless of what he may or may not have done to Lorena during the course of their marriage, I fail to see how her decision to mutilate him is funny.

I know this would never have aired had it been a man mutilating a woman.

I’m so sorry. None of that is okay. I’m just in shock.