john wayne bobbitt

THE HESTER LACEY INTERVIEW; He could easily pass for another of the Walton brothers, though long-lost, disowned and surgically enhanced

Speaking to John Wayne Bobbitt offers a curious insight into what it must be like to be a certain type of man - the type who talks to a woman's chest rather than to her face. But the focal point is considerably further down. Bobbitt is the man who had fame thrust on him three years ago when his wife Lorena slashed off his penis with a kitchen knife, and, fleeing by car, tossed it from the window. Police retrieved the missing organ from a field, and it was successfully re-attached in an operation that lasted over nine hours, though for some days the future efficiency of the Bobbitt plumbing wavered in the balance.

The furore that surrounded Lorena Bobbitt's subsequent trial made the OJ Simpson case look like small potatoes, as supporters of each side mobbed the courtroom in small-town Manassas, Virginia. Lorena, who claimed in court that Bobbitt had abused her for years, was eventually acquitted on the grounds of temporary insanity, and quite understandably fled into obscurity. Bobbitt, however, who was acquitted of the charges she brought against him, had developed a considerable taste for attention. He milked the talk-show celebrity circuit for all it was worth, and when he was given the chance to make an "adult movie" he jumped at it. The resulting John Wayne Bobbitt Uncut, a soft-porn dramatisation of the notorious case, is the biggest-selling adult video in the US, and will be on sale in Britain tomorrow (though to cater for more delicate British tastes, John Wayne Bobbitt Uncut has been lopped once again, to secure an 18 certificate).

It would not be exactly fair to say that the video is wooden, because so many of the characters rely so heavily on silicone. It's easy to forget to keep an eye out for the starring member of the cast, among the crowds of impossibly buxom women who look as though they need a hoist and scaffolding to get out of bed in the morning. Even John Wayne himself claims to have tired of their silicone valleys. "The British have a lot of beautiful, natural women. Where I come from, Vegas, it's a different world, and a lot of the women there are fake. I'm the type of man who likes a real woman." Way to go, John Wayne.

In the flesh, as it were, he looks rather different to the Bobbitt on the tape. Without a studio tan, he looks jet-lagged and pasty, and somehow shorter, chubbier and less toned, though under his Calvin Klein T-shirt his chest muscles twitch alarmingly when he's thinking hard. He refers to his life in Las Vegas a lot, but somehow he doesn't reflect the glitz of his new home town. He looks like a product of the sticks. With his long-lashed grey eyes, a still oddly limpid country-boy gaze, uneven teeth and cropped hair, Bobbitt, now 29, could easily pass for yet another Walton brother, though long-lost and long-disowned.

His speech is slow, and he is painfully literal. He was born in Niagara, New York. What kind of a place is Niagara? "Well, there's a big waterfall." Yes, indeed, and quite a famous one. But what was it like to live there? "It was my playground when I was a kid. I love it. Mother Nature at her best. But I grew up in a very poor family. We were the only white family living in a really rough neighbourhood. My mother was raped twice, our house was vandalised, a lot of stuff was stolen, I got beaten up. And that was all in pre-school. My mother, she had a mental breakdown. That's why I chose to be in the Marines, to work hard and be strong."

Although military cutbacks forced him to leave the navy, he believes that on the fateful night when he was given the chop by "the devil's daughter", as he now likes to call his ex-wife, he owed his life to his training in the Marines. "I have a very high tolerance of pain. It hurt for a split second. It was very frightening. But I was very confident of surviving, because I was trained in dealing with war, where you can get hurt really badly." All the same, presumably penile amputation came as something of a jolt? "I was shocked," he says seriously. "It was like being attacked by a predator."

In the video, the operation is presented as a procedure of much the same calibre as having a broken nail repaired, and a mere two days later he is much comforted by the ministrations of two nubile nurses whose uniforms conveniently drop off at the undoing of a belt. The real timescale for getting back to something approaching normal, he admits, was somewhat different. "But it still took only three months. That's all. I'm a strong guy, very fit, good genetics."

Learning by experience, however, is obviously not his forte. Once his original scars had healed, he put his much-abused penis under the knife yet again, this time in an enlargement operation - a process more painful, he says, than having the whole thing chopped off and put back. Sadly, the fat injected into it, taken from other parts of his body, has settled unevenly, and the surgeon will need to have yet another corrective fiddle around. (Though he is not entirely dissatisfied. "It works fine, but it doesn't look quite how it should.")

And, having divorced Lorena, he narrowly escaped marrying a Las Vegas stripper, and ended up briefly in prison for assaulting her. "She was a gold-digger. She was real beautiful but she was only with me for personal gain. I was never violent to her. She lied in court, she admitted to lying, it was a complete set-up. Everyone in Vegas don't like her any more because of what she did. She was just a bad person. There's a lot of girls like that, con artists and hustlers." So real women are not queuing up to get intimate? "Well, I dunno, not really. Would you want to? No? Hahaha. Are you just saying that?"

He takes some of the blame for Lorena's revenge. His marriage was already breaking up, he says, but admits to being "insensitive" when he informed Lorena bluntly that he wanted a divorce, then went out on the town with the friend who ended up driving him to hospital later that same night. "I hurt her feelings. I gotta be more sensitive. But because I'm a combat Marine, I'm trained not to have emotions. As a man who's supposed to protect and defend, it's really hard for me to understand a person who has lots of feelings. But I've learned to be sensitive to other people, understand them a lot better. I'm a lot different."

Despite this new man stance, the nice girl who can "handle my kind of lifestyle" has yet to appear, and he is pinning his hopes on his career. His second movie, Frankenpenis, is already out in the States; a graphic tale of his enlargement ("you can see it before and after"). He has also filmed a third, Bobbitt Goes Wylde, with Kim Wylde, a bondage starlet. He is back at school, learning about real estate, but he also wants to study acting. "A lot of famous actors did adult movies. Stallone, the Italian Stallion. Richard Gere. I like Morgan Freeman, too, but he never did an adult movie, he's way too intelligent, too wise. I hope to be real successful, real wealthy. I've paid all my bills, medical and legal, and I'm hoping to move on to better things, and reach my goals. And I will, because I'm that kind of guy."

In the past, though, he has discovered that the shadowy world of adult entertainment can be cruel. "I always watched adult movies, even when I was married to Lorena, and I thought about doing it, but not seriously until after it happened. So I didn't really know that much about the entertainment business, how things worked, negotiating contracts," he says ruefully. It's not hard to imagine that showbiz sharks would make short work of him. "My first team of managers took advantage. I've got to be careful. My father's going to watch over me, get a handle on what's going on. He's smart, the person I admire the most."

His parents, no doubt, will breathe a sigh of profound relief should a mainstream movie career ever get off the ground (or even one in real estate). After all, Bobbitt is a distinctive name and he is rather famous in the States (the term "to bobbitt" as in "to emasculate" is common verbal currency). How does his mother feel about his current line of business? "If you were my mom, what would you feel? She's very religious, very conservative, married over 35 years. I come from a very good family with high morals. Me and my five brothers were raised very properly."

He has a small son of his own, by a woman called Beatrice Williams. "There was a paternity settlement. Never seen the child. He's about three. I kind of want to see him. I wonder what he's doing sometimes. He's been on television, the whole world's seen him before I do." Though three years would seem ample time to drop by and say hi.

Whatever may happen, though, he has the comfort of a higher power. "I'm very religious. There's a lot of wisdom in the Bible. As a child I didn't understand it a lot, it's very hard to read. I've got a book that's written in more modern English, so you can understand it." Beware, John Wayne, some of those serious movie scripts might have some big ol' long words in.

So, what with the Bible and all, does he actually think of himself as quite a moral person? He laughs uproariously. "I'm in town, so lock up your daughters. I'm just a baaaad boy!"

! 'John Wayne Bobbitt Uncut', pounds 12.99, at major video outlets from Monday 9 September.