Ron Jeremy gave me something last night.
He slipped me a greasy chicken. I know what you might be thinking, but it isn’t the cool new euphemism – nothing like the dependable classics, Rusty Trombone and Dirty Sanchez.
No, he provided some of his ETSU-issued poultry to me last night after a Porn Debate with his opponent, “porn pastor” Craig Gross. Jeremy gave me some dinner.
It’s one of the many things I did not expect from a name famous for sleeping with upwards of 4,000 women, hopefully none of them being your mom, aunt or grandmother.
But it turns out that Jeremy is one hell of an educated porn star and – get ready – a very normal guy. He’ll give you chicken.
So you’ve got to wonder, why go around defending your craft when you’ve already got loads of money from being a sexual all-star?
“People should hear the different opinions on it,” Jeremy said. “I don’t mind a little controversy. I don’t mind porn kept in check a little bit, you know?”
As he waltzed – there’s no other way to describe his walk – into the packed-to-capacity Culp Center Ballroom, most students reacted like college kids should, yelling and screaming for a man they either saw as bigger than a rock star or one sick dude.
When the debate started, the text messaging and apathy that saturate classrooms everywhere ceased completely. It got quieter in there than Tri-Cities Baptist.
The only times anyone pulled out their phones was to use the camera to take a snapshot of either “The Hedgehog” or the preacher from Southern California.
Here’s where it gets interesting. As I write this article, my three lovely editors are not exactly swooning for the 55-year old Jeremy. Looking at (clean) pictures, they’ve commented on “the ugly tree” or some other form of “ewww” every two minutes.
So that’s the ironic thing here – with his movie star looks, Gross attacks the porn business that has fed your everyday “weird uncle” type, Ron Jeremy. And Gross does it pretty well.
“[I’m] here to tell you that pornography is fantasy, and what you’re going to see in these videos or on the Internet is not reality,” Gross said in his opening remarks. “Porn and real sex actually doesn’t look anything alike.”
Speaking about our generation, the one that grew up with Google, Gross made his case that Internet porn has become our “sex ed.”
In his opening remarks, Jeremy combated what he called “garbage statistics” from Gross by denouncing “the dirtier, kinkier stuff” and citing that women make more money from porn companies than men.
“If watching porn has ruined your sex lives, I’m sorry,” Jeremy said.
Following the opening statements, around 30 students lined up to ask questions and the debate started to revolve around issues of censorship. Some students started to leave early.
“A lot of people are asking questions on how to stop porn, and why porn is bad, but I’m not sure that’s why people came,” junior David Parish said.
The testosterone-dominated crowd tended to side with the porn star, but the feelings of the student body were blessedly mixed by the end of the show.
“I think porn is degrading to women – I mean, I don’t see the difference between pornography and prostitution, they’re getting paid for the same thing,” junior Megan Conley said.
“It was surprising to see this many women here tonight, women I know,” freshman Jackie Madison said. “I respect them more for being here.”
Perhaps most impressively, Gross never condemned Jeremy for the wild events of his past and present. The two share a friendship, and their bond poses a bigger question – can all of us, porn watchers and Jesus rockers, chill out and get along?
“Ron does porn for a living, he does it as a job,” Gross said. “But you know, a lot of these kids claim to follow Christ, but consume porn . People always say, ‘you’re friends with this guy?’ But he’s a normal dude.

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