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Thursday, Jan 8, 2009
Clarence Thomas: With the weird foreplay of the Menendez trial, the conversation quickly escalated when in 1991 a Supreme Court nominee was accused by a former assistant of sexual harassment. At congressional hearings in October of that year, the country came to a halt while Anita Hill testified about the strange sexual behavior of her former boss. "He got up from the table where we were working," she said, referring to several incidents in 1982, "went over to his desk to get a Coke, looked at the can and asked, 'Who has put pubic hair on my Coke?'" On another occasion he referred to the size of his own penis as being "larger than normal." As the nation leaned closer for a collective listen, Hill testified that, in his attempts to seduce her, Thomas invoked the notorious porn star Long Dong Silver -- immediately resulting in a massive upsurge in the renting of the videos featuring the super-size performer.
Meanwhile, the country was ripped by a new skirmish in the ongoing gender war: Was Hill telling the truth? While thousands of women affixed "I Believe You Anita" bumper stickers to their cars, men hunkered down at the office water cooler and whispered nasty jokes. Thomas survived the battle and ascended to the Supreme Court, but years of guffaws ensued. The episode was finally put to bed in 1998 when Fox Television scrapped plans to air "Strange Justice," a movie based on a book about the Thomas hearings, perhaps because the Murdoch-owned network feared upcoming Supreme Court hearings about cable operations.
William Kennedy Smith: With his arrest in 1991 for rape, the decade's baton was passed to a perennial player, the Kennedy family. Once again, the country pondered that pesky question: Whither the royal unit and was it on the guest list? Too far and no, claimed the woman who pressed charges. While the Menendez tale played on, Patricia Bowden testified in a Palm Beach, Fla., courtroom that Smith raped her at the Kennedy family's compound after a night of partying with Uncle Ted. Along with Smith, it seemed as if the entire family were on trial, as prolonged public discussion of Kennedy sexual conquests and the disaster at Chappaquiddick dominated the ether.
The mild-mannered female district attorney in Palm Beach was no match for Smith's high-priced gun; Smith was acquitted, paving the karmic way years later for renewed interest in the case of Martha Moxley, a teenager murdered in Greenwich, Conn., in 1975, allegedly by Ethel Kennedy's nephews.
Lorena and John Wayne Bobbitt: With Lorena's arrest in 1993 for castrating her husband, the drama reached a climax as women across the country hit the media streets in support of their new heroine. After being raped (she said) by her ironically named husband, John Wayne, Lorena fulfilled the nomenclatural destiny of their mutual surname and cut off his penis. Whereupon she took it for a ride and tossed it into a neighbor's yard. The dismembered unit was found by a maintenance man, driven to the hospital and reattached.
With this story, the press got two for the price of one; the old newsroom adage "If it bleeds, it leads" became "If it's big and hard, it stars." While John recuperated and the world waited for news of how fared his member, Lorena's trial for malicious wounding unfolded. In the end she was found not guilty by way of temporary insanity and sentenced to 90 days in a mental institution. The rising tide of this episode floated many boats, include that of the castrato himself. John Wayne Bobbitt became a porn star and stripper, Jay Leno had jokes for the next two years and the country was giddy with cock-related queries such as, Can he get it up? For how long? And how long is it?
For those wondering, the answer apparently is more or less. In his video "John Wayne Bobbitt Uncut," he boffs a number of horny starlets, despite evident battle damage. And it seemed to be in working order in 1997, when he was fired from his gig as doorman at the Moonlight Bunny Ranch in Carson City, Nev., because he reportedly could not stop manhandling the girls. 1997 was an equally bad year for Lorena -- she was arrested for beating up her mother.
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