Last night’s “Great Porn Debate” drew a long line of students to their feet with questions for the featured panelists, Ron Jeremy and Michael Leahy.
Jeremy, 55, one of the best known American porn stars, was defending his industry’s right to produce pornographic films. His opponent, Leahy, 50, is a recovering sex addict who argued that the business needs to up their game in regulating porn to ensure that underage children cannot view it as easily.
Aaron Cohn, the vice president of academic affairs for the Student Association, moderated the event. It was held at Binghamton University’s Anderson Center.
The crowd roared with applause when Jeremy entered. Leahy immediately recognized the support for Jeremy.
“Thank you for inviting me to the Ron Jeremy fan club,” he joked.
Leahy said he began watching porn at the age of 11, which is the average age that most people start watching porn, according to Family Safe Media.
“I was one of those guys who said, ‘I wanna be like Ron Jeremy.’ He had the best job description of any guy I knew,” Leahy said.
During the debate, Leahy said that by the time he met his wife, “[he] had already had a ten-year relationship with pornography.” He also spoke about how he viewed woman had been greatly affected by his problem.
Leahy said the addiction eventually caused him to lose his wife, children and friends. Although Leahy said he didn’t blame the porn industry for his dependency, he does not believe that the industry is doing everything it can to regulate the material available. Jeremy argued that there are many ways to completely block porn from computers nowadays.
They both agreed that the business should be doing more than relying on people’s honesty in age verification questions to allow them into sites. Jeremy added that other countries don’t have these problems because no one under 18 is allowed to have a credit card.
“If consenting adults want to watch other consenting adults have sex, I don’t see a problem,” Jeremy said.
According to Jeremy, many people can watch porn responsibly. In fact, some psychologists recommend it for monogamous couples who are having relationship issues related to sex.
Jeremy said that porn wasn’t necessarily harmful and that there were numerous other things that are potentially addicting and even dangerous — such as nuclear energy, automobiles and alcohol. The porn star questioned how many people die annually from each of those and how many people die each year due to watching porn.
According to Jeremy, the porn industry adds numerous “warnings” before any video, DVD or voice clip is played. The warnings generally say that all actors seen in the film have been blood tested, are required to wear condoms and have their freedom of speech.
Jeremy questioned what else the porn industry could be doing to satisfy Leahy.
In response, Leahy said that Jeremy is defending a porn industry that no longer exists; the porn era that Jeremy began his career in has ended and the Internet porn era is here. That includes all of the videos that amateurs make, which the porn industry has no control over. Jeremy agreed that the industry has changed.
“It used to be mostly acting and a little bit of sex, now it’s the complete opposite,” Jeremy said. “Now, the scripts consist of ‘sit down, have a cup of coffee — let’s have sex.’”
Students continually burst out in laughter throughout the debate. But some, such as Lexie Hare, a BU junior majoring in French, sat through the entire event and “didn’t see how it was a real debate.”
“Mike kept talking about Internet porn and Ron is from the porn industry that existed before Internet porn, so it was like two unrelated people talking to each other,” Hare added.
Leahy said he views the porn industry as the “big tobacco” of this generation. Both panelists agree that the porn industry is changing and that slowly but surely, “the Internet is killing pornography.”