From the Associated Press newswire:
GARDEN GROVE, Calif. — A Southern California woman was in custody Tuesday after authorities said she drugged her estranged husband, tied him to a bed, cut off his penis and put it through a garbage disposal.
Garden Grove police Lt. Jeff Nightengale said that Catherine Kieu Becker drugged a meal and served it to the victim, whose name was not released, shortly before the attack Monday night. Nightengale said the 51-year-old man felt sick, went to lie down and lost consciousness. The 48-year-old Becker then tied the victim’s arms and legs to the bed with rope, removed his clothes and attacked him with a 10-inch kitchen knife as he awoke, Nightengale said.
“He was conscious when his penis was removed,” Nightengale said.
Nightengale said Becker put the penis in the garbage disposal and turned it on.
DAMN.
She put it in the garbage disposal, y’all.
SRSLY.
Naturally, the Harpies had a conversation about this. The woman reportedly told the police that her husband—who had initiated divorce proceedings—”deserved it.” Maybe. Maude knows, I’ve been keeping a list of men I think deserve it for some time now (yeah, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, you’re at the top).
Anna commented that: “it makes you wonder what sort of history was there, that he “deserved” it, yeah?” Which…yeah. Maybe I’m just jaded and cynical—actually, maybe we all are—because that’s exactly what I (and we) first thought when we heard the news. After seeing case after case where rapists going free, rape victims are smeared, battered women are dismissed by the police and murdered by their partners, it makes taking a knife and firing up the disposal….well, let’s just say that, in the words of Chris Rock, “I ain’t sayin’ it’s right…but I understand.”
We don’t know much about this case—apparently there’s no reported history of spousal abuse on either side—but PhDork said: “I worry that a severed wang is going to be the least worst part of this story.”
That was certainly the case with Lorena Bobbitt, who cut off her husband’s penis in 1993. Lorena Bobbitt was acquitted by reason of insanity after extensive testimony about being beaten and raped by her husband. While battered woman syndrome is very real, it always seemed to me that the jury was thinking less about the specifics of Lorena’s mental health than just going with the gut feeling that John “had it coming.”
Clearly, something very, very wrong happened here. That much is indisputable. What struck me as we discussed this is that there’s still an awful lot wrong in the world if our first thought is that the man might have been the victim of rough justice by someone he victimized rather than the victim of a horrible assault. Or that this kind of attack might be justice at all. I ask you, gentle readers, are things really that bad?
I would be totally conflicted if my initial reaction had been “…Maybe I understand?” so I sympathize with your discombobulation. Heaven knows my thoughts on rapists and abusers can be disturbingly violent.
In this case, though, having only seen this story here on Harpyness… my reaction was distress that a person would ever try to control another person’s body that way. Drugging a man and severing his penis is on an extreme end of the controlling-another’s-bodily-autonomy spectrum, as is rape. And my reaction is flat-out condemnation of that entire goddamn spectrum.
Maybe this reaction is a way of reconciling the horror of mutilation with the lowbrow entertainment value of potty humor.
I suppose that this kind of thing is so ‘out there’ that you don’t want to think anyone could just do it without it being a case of finally snapping after something hideously traumatic.
There’s a long old history of rape with no ‘reason’ – we’re used to it being a random crime against someone with no reason for it being that particular victim, it’s ‘all about the perpetrator’ (at least, it probably is if you’re a Harpy reader!), but we’re not used to seeing women randomly drug strangers and chop their bits off, it’s been a wrong-but-understandable reaction to being pushed past the limits of endurance.
Equally though, there are still plenty of people out there whose first reaction to a rape story is ‘did she ask for it’…
Wasn’t the ‘It’s wrong, but I *understand* quote Chris Rock’s sly reference to OJ Simpson’s murder of Nicole? For me, that context makes the distinction between obvious wrongness, but then my having my own assumptions, even more stark and disturbing.
Delightful as the thought is of some particularly loathsome men having their junk cut off, ultimately it isn’t going to solve the problems that led to the act in the first place. As my daughter said, that’s not exactly peaceful conflict resolution.
Is this news? I mean, yes, it’s a heinous crime, and I certainly feel sorry for the man and the woman, that somehow it all came to this, but seriously? Let the police handle it and all the sordid details that go with it. I just see this being the kind of fodder for the daily news shows that elevates this in relative importance to a place it doesn’t belong.
As to the whole “he had it coming” angle — that doesn’t work for any crime. Period. No one “has it coming.” Karma may be involved, but that still doesn’t justify this.
1) He started divorce proceedings, and they were estranged. In other words, he was in the process of leaving her. That’s when she attacked him. Is this about control for her?
2) She attacked him in his sleep. Is this a hint that there had been violence between them, and that unless he was unconscious, she was outmatched?
I’m interested to hear what harpies out there have to say. It’s hard to disentangle. I’m going to hear all about this elsewhere tomorrow, I suspect.
“As to the whole “he had it coming” angle — that doesn’t work for any crime. Period. No one “has it coming.” Karma may be involved, but that still doesn’t justify this.”
This.
That seems like the obvious answer. While most spouses who seriously injure their partners are men, it’s only ~3/4 or so (in Canada, anyhow). It sounds like an ordinary domestic violence story that newspapers picked up because they figured they could get a few giggles out of “Woman is violent to man” and the word penis appearing in print.
Just chiming in here to agree with everyone who as said that mutilation is mutilation full stop. Someone does violence to another person and that’s not okay. Ever. Sometimes understandable and/or unavoidable, but never okay (in my book … I realize other people have less strict adherence to nonviolence than I do).
Without having looked at this story any further than the AP wire account, though, my question about how this would have been different if the violence was male-on-female violence and/or my questions about the context of the mutiliation is more about our cultural tolerance for domestic violence against women. While I don’t have the statistics on-hand, often this sort of extreme situation of intimate partner violence doesn’t come out of nowhere … there is a history of dysfunction. THIS IS NOT TO SAY the woman’s actions were in any way warranted. I just wonder about the context, and whether there was systemic abuse (either her toward him, or him toward her) that went unreported and un-checked.
I also wonder how the media reporting would differ if the situation were male-on-female violence and mutilation. Would it have the same reporting “value” that this story does (would it go beyond the local crime beat? I think not).
@anna man bites dog, dog bites man stories I guess
@Anna: Would it have the same reporting “value” that this story does (would it go beyond the local crime beat? I think not).
Agreed. If I were being Freudian, I think the media frenzy over this story is due in part to our culture’s phallocentricism and collective castration anxiety. If I were merely being cynical, I’d say that anytime something violent happens to a penis, that’s news. When it happens to a vagina, not so much. We all know whose junk is more valued in this society.
Well, I can honestly say that, having been in an abusive relationship, I can understand sorta kinda maybe what she did. I had a boyfriend who was mentally and emotionally abusive and would have been physically abusive, but the one time he threatened me ( to hit me with a glass gallon jug half full of pennies), I told him he had better make sure I was dead because if he didn’t, I would kill his ass. And I meant it. I told him never to go to sleep around me if he ever hit me, because I would sew him into the sheets and beat him to death with a baseball bat. Evidently he believed me because he never ever laid a hand on me, and eventually I threw him out. That was 32 years ago, and I’ve never put up with any kind of abuse from a man since. So things have been that bad for more years than most of us can remember (I’m 57).
[...] “Why do I think that he did something to provoke this?” This morning, it spread over to The Pursuit of Harpyness. Now, I want to don kid gloves for this section. I discovered the blog because they recently gave [...]
“I’ve been keeping a list of men I think deserve it for some time now …”
What would you think of a man who kept a list of women who he thinks deserve to be raped?
@EvilPundit: I would think that if that man raped them, I wouldn’t shed a single tear if I heard his dick got cut off.
@BeckySharper: That wasn’t my question.
@EvilPundit: You asked me what I would think of that man and I answered your question. Sorry, but there was no guarantee you’d get the answer you wanted.
You did not answer my question. I asked “What would you think of a man who kept a list of women who he thinks deserve to be raped?”
I think you changed the subject, because if you said that man was wrong to keep such a list, then your own double standards would become impossible to ignore – because you’ve “been keeping a list of men [you] think deserve it for some time now”.
EvilPundit, you’ve left troll-y comments on this site before, so we all know you don’t discuss issues in good faith, and your questions have always been a cover for you to express your anti-feminist views. You may think of my standards whatever you like; I’m not taking your bait. Go ahead and congratulate yourself for your astuteness if you need to feel that you “won” on a feminist website.
Victim blaming here is no different than victim blaming in a rape case (until the facts come out). It’s possible that he did something to her, but AFAIK the tendency is for perpetrators of extreme abuse to be actual perpetrators rather than victims lashing back (male or female).
This is an incredibly disgusting post.
Would it not be move deserved to put the penis into a meat grinder while it is still attached?
That would drive the lesson home even more forcefully.
I could imagine some kitchen equipment to do that task.
“If I were merely being cynical, I’d say that anytime something violent happens to a penis, that’s news. When it happens to a vagina, not so much. We all know whose junk is more valued in this society.”
When the current penis incident occurred, it was presented in the media light-heartedly. Try to think of a single incident of violence against a woman, of any kind, in which a member of the media pondered what the victim might have done to deserve it.
Do girls have a good chance of not making it out of infancy without having their genitals mutilated? Are incidents of girls getting hit in their reproductive organs used as comic relief in movies? Is any kind of violence against women in the news ever made light of? I agree that it’s obvious “whose junk is more valued in our society”.
@BeckySharper: Why will you not answer Pundit’s original question? Given your statement regarding the lists you are keeping it seems like a perfectly reasonable query.
Try to think of a single incident of violence against a woman, of any kind, in which a member of the media pondered what the victim might have done to deserve it.
I can’t recall a case of violence against women where that was not pondered.
I’m with those who think we shouldn’t be pondering it in this case either. I especially don’t like it when instigation of abuse is presumed on the part of the person trying to get out of the relationship.
“I can’t recall a case of violence against women where that was not pondered.”
Really then? Please then, start with one case of this in the media.
@NC: the 11 year old girl in Cleveland TX who was repeatedly gang raped and then the NY Times reported on her allegedly too-mature dress and behavior, implying she was at fault.
The 2 NYPD cops acquitted of raping a drunk woman in the East Village.
Dominique Strauss-Kahn.
Roman Polanski.
Rihanna.
Nicole Brown Simpson.
Bonnie Lee Bakeley (murdered wife of Robert Blake).
Robin Givens, who was crucified in the media when she spoke out about being beaten by her then-husband Mike Tyson (who was later convicted of rape).
Jennifer Levin, murdered by “preppie killer” Robert Chambers.
I could go on…but you only asked for one example. Google any of these cases and you’ll see that in nearly all of them, the male rapist/murderer/abuser went free, and in ALL of them, the female victim was blamed and her behavior/reputation was called into question or slandered by the media, and the usual apologists.
Carla, I love you.
It is, truly viciously bigoted to laugh at a man that has been tortured, mutilated and left crippled for life. It is similarly bigoted to balme him for the crime. Yet this is the state of man-hate in America. Witness the MILIONS of American women that laughed at the popular, mainstream women’s show, CBS’s “The Talk”:
http://www.cbs.com/daytime/the_talk/video/?pid=uYY6jHTAD9Nnj4bak1K2G3c1Bdr0rTyt
There is no horror that can be done to a man today that is not funny to American women.