I originally wrote this article in 2017. I wasn’t sure if I would ever publish it or not, but I needed to write it for me – not anyone else. But in light of recent events regarding the charges of sexual assault and rape against him, I felt the Lord leading me to share now.
If you automatically know who Ron Jeremy is when you hear his name, I’m sorry. Oh how I wish I weren’t writing this blog. I wish I could just be a 36-year old who knew nothing about the world of pornography and sexual addiction. But I can’t.
I “met” Ron Jeremy when I was a child. He was in his 30’s or 40’s and I hadn’t even turned 8 years old yet. His mustache was thick and his forehead rather large. His New York accent was gentler than it was thick and overbearing.
I can still recognize his voice from a mile away – a voice that forever changed my life.
I was forced to watch pornography as a little girl by people who were supposed to be protecting me. For the next 20+ years it was part of my identity. I didn’t know life without it. I didn’t know life without Ron Jeremy in it, a man known as one of the 50 top porn stars of all time. A man 30 years older than me. A man who was paid to have sex with thousands of women in front of a camera.
And I watched, over and over again.
He was on the shelf hidden in the back room of my grandfather’s grocery store. He was hidden in the closet of my parents’ bedroom. He was in the magazine on the shelf at the convenience store where I’d walk to buy a Crunch bar when I’d visit my dad on the weekends.
He was hidden in the pockets of my brain that I’d manage to control so others wouldn’t know my secrets.
It’s been 11 years since I’ve looked at pornography. The last time it happened, I’d been “clean” for almost 2 years. I opened up the laptop on one of the worst days of my life and there before me was a sea of disgusting, humiliating, shame-filled images on the screen.
In front of me were men who were once little boys playing with their tractors in the back yard, and women who were once little girls dreaming about their prince charming coming on a white horse to carry her away to her castle so they could live happily ever after.
Among the sea of images was Ron, a man old enough to be my father. A man I knew way too much about. I wonder what he dreamed about as a little boy? I bet it wasn’t growing up to be one of the most famous porn stars of all time.
I bet he didn’t plan to grow up and rape women.
I know I didn’t wake up one day and dream about being addicted to pornography. I never planned to grow up and be triggered by simple words that could send my mind quickly into a spiral of flashbacks of a sexual world that sometimes still haunts me.
No one wakes up one day as a child and says, “I want to grow up and be addicted.” No one.
But life. Life happens. Mean people do things to little girls and little boys who lose their innocence in the blink of an eye. And sometimes they find things that make them feel like they belong somewhere in the world, even if it’s a lie. They find coping mechanisms to fill a void the world cannot fill. A void people cannot fill – drugs, alcohol, shopping, food.
One of my coping mechanisms was pornography. From the moment my eyes met the television screen as an innocent little girl, I became part of a world that though I didn’t understand, I thought could maybe understand me. I’ve struggled most of my life feeling like I didn’t fit in. Feeling misunderstood.
Pornography became an escape from reality, and though those behind the screen didn’t know me, maybe for a second, they could understand me.
Somehow Ron Jeremy became a “safe” place for me. As crazy as that sounds writing it out, I realize just how true it was. The world around me wasn’t safe. I was convinced everyone would hurt me and abandon me. I believed my dad was incapable of loving me because of the alcohol. I was certain I was in my mother’s way and life would be better if I was invisible.
So for a moment I could pop in a VHS tape and escape to a world, that though I didn’t fully understand, somehow made me feel like I belonged. Thanks to technology I would later only have to click a few times to walk into the online world of porn. (Allow me to digress for a moment and say parents, you better know what your kids are doing on technology.)
I had to stop typing for a minute a few paragraphs ago and cry, realizing how much Ron Jeremy affected my life. Is he responsible for the destruction brought into my life through the world of pornography? No. Those who forced me to watch it as a little girl are.
And then there’s the responsibility I must take for choosing to continue staying lost in that broken world for many years of my life.
I want to hate Ron Jeremy. I didn’t realize until recently how much he impacted my life. But I can’t. He doesn’t even know me, even though I know way too much about him. I’m angry. Angry that he chose a profession that exploited thousands of men and women who were once innocent children, himself included.
I’m angry at every check he took to the bank with a smile on his face for the “work” he did while I desperately wanted to share my secret with someone, but instead allowed my life to be ruled by shame.
I’m angry that he was once a special education teacher to children, yet chose to have sex with thousands of women, many of them most likely half his age.
And now I’m even angrier to know that that wasn’t enough satisfaction for him. No, he had to sexually assault and rape multiple women.
Addiction doesn’t stop until it’s dealt with. It only gets worse, I promise.
My heart hurts for Ron Jeremy. He smiles, but I wonder if he’s really dying inside. You can’t walk in an addiction and not die inside eventually. You can’t numb yourself with porn, drugs, alcohol, food, you name it, and still say you love life. The two can’t co-exist. I’m assuming here, but I would have to say Ron’s heart is simply beating to survive – he’s not living.
You can call being a porn star a career if it makes you feel better about yourself, but it’s not a career. It’s an addiction. It’s a dark pit of hell that sucks in both those behind the screen and those watching.
And I’m not even talking about the thousands of those “forced” into pornography through the disgusting, vile world of sex trafficking.
Jeremy said in a 2014 interview with On Faith Magazine, “I’m not a slave to my career and I can quit when I want. I stand behind the things I’ve done, but it was a second choice. I’ve done it, and I’m proud of it.”
I would love to know as he sits in jail awaiting trial, having been refused a $6.6 million bond, if he still feels that way. I’m going to assume yes since he pled not guilty and still refuses to accept an ounce of responsibility for his life-destroying actions.
Ahh… Haven’t we all said that about the addictions we get trapped in? “I can quit when I want.” In the words of my counselor, “I call bull crap!”
I want to hate Ron Jeremy. But I can’t. I choose forgiveness. I choose to pray. I pray for the death in his heart to be revived to life. I pray for him to fall to his knees in repentance for the thousands of lives his choices have affected. I pray he steps up and takes some responsibility. I pray he will one day make amends with all those he was paid to have sex with. I pray one day he is freed from his addiction the way I was freed from mine. I pray one day he seeks forgiveness from the women he sexually assaulted and raped.
Perhaps one day we’ll sit down together and I’ll do my best to understand his viewpoint and he’ll do his best to understand mine. Maybe, just maybe. But for now I pray. For now I ask God to help me remove bitterness against him. And sometimes I have to ask Him multiple times.
I want to hate Ron Jeremy. But I can’t.