XXXChurch.com Pastor, Adult Film Star Ron Jeremy Debate Porn and Human Sex Trafficking
Editor's Note: Warning, some explicit sexual language in following article
New York University hosted a discussion on Tuesday featuring pastor and founder of XXXChurch.com, an online ministry that aims to help ex-pornography addicts, and adult film star Ron Jeremy to speak on the correlation between porn and human sex trafficking.
The event, "Free Porn? Porn Stars vs. Pastors," was organized by the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship chapter for the The Price of Life: NYC, a city-wide, campus-based campaign that addresses human trafficking issues.
Get Our Latest News for FREE
"We believe that sex under no circumstances should be for sale," said Jonathan Walton, spokesperson for the Price of Life. "At its essence, pornography is commercial sexual exploitation. Our hope was to draw clear, straight lines in how pornography is used to train children in the U.S. and abroad in Red Light districts in Cambodia, Mexico, Thailand and elsewhere."
Jeremy told the crowd of over 100 during the discussion that human trafficking and porn are not related, stating that the issue deals more with the prostitution of minors than anything else, while adding that videos of underage girls engaged in human trafficking sexual acts do not exist, according to his knowledge.
"I don't know of anyone videotaping, because why would anybody take a chance with breaking the law? People don't want to just put you in jail. They want to kill you for something like that," Jeremy said. "They're not going to video it because they're going to be tracked down that way. Trafficking is more of a prostitution thing, it's not a porn thing."
However, Gross disagreed and said that such videos do exist.
"There's a lot of stuff that I've heard of with the Internet that's not produced by the companies in LA that's got girls underage that probably deals with potentially trafficked girls," Gross said. "They're not going to touch it in their industry, but does it exist? Is it online? Yes."
According to Freedom Youth Project, an organization that combats child sex trafficking through research, pornography is a leading cause of human trafficking for minors in the U.S. The U.S. Department reports that on an international level, 27 million victims of trafficking exist compared to the roughly 300,000 cases that are reported on an annual basis in the U.S.
This topic was also discussed during the event when Gross spoke about girls who are barely legal and exploited by being featured in online porn videos.
"Sure, it's legal, but it's barely legal. You've got girls in pigtails, you've got girls in braces. I mean, some of the titles from these movies - "Young, Dumb and Full of Cum, Don't Tell Daddy!" and "Slutty Sitters 16," which means there's 15 other versions of "Slutty Sitters"… And the Internet has made this so accessible," Gross said.
Jeremy reacted in defense of his opinion, saying that several organizations exist to help the industry self-govern in not allowing underage girls to get involved with porn, while acknowledging that some women become adult film actresses as soon as they turn 18.
"Yes, kids are a big part of it, I mean 18 or over, 19 or over. There's a series called 'Barely Legal,' which targets girls who are a bit young, but they're still of legal age," Jeremy said. "You have all kinds of IDs you have to show. You have to xerox the IDs, credit cards, passports, driver's licenses to show they're all the right age. There are some people who try to lure [underage girls] in, but we stopped it."
Another topic of discussion was about the amount of money that women make depending on the sexual acts they engage in and the amount of partners they get involved with on screen.
"I'll give you the exact breakdown, $600-800 girl-on-girl; $800-1000, boy-girl. $1000-1400, anal," Jeremy said. "If you have multiple partners, it keeps going up, up, up, up, up. And what's wrong with that?"
Jeremy and Gross also debated about the empowerment of women in the porn industry.
"Ron's going to talk about how women get paid more than he does. But just because you give a woman a bigger paycheck doesn't mean she's in power," Gross said.
He continued, "I met a girl at dinner with Ron one night who said, 'Oh, it's a bad economy so I gotta do anal. So I'm stretching my ass so I can do some anal scenes.' I'm telling you, they're working for a paycheck, and the filthier stuff they do gets higher pay. This stuff doesn't empower women."
Jeremy said getting paid millions to do porn is not "automatically empowering." However, he mentioned that one of the ways success is measured in America's capitalist system is by money.
"I never said that women are empowered by doing porn. I'm saying they can make a good living doing porn, if they choose to. These are girls who do not have the money to go to college. Some of them worked in McDonald's. They chose to do porn and become millionaires in five of six years."
To conclude their semi-debate, the moderator of the discussion asked Gross and Jeremy about how they viewed sex in general.
"I've only had sex with one woman, he's had sex with 5,000. Ron says the best sex he's ever had is missionary position because he can look at her face and make that connection. I think sex is not just a physical act, it's a spiritual act," Gross said.
Jeremy shot back saying, "We're actually very similar. I do it with a few thousand women, he's done it with his wife a few thousand times. It's the same thing. Also, you don't have to have sex when it's emotional, that was more for my era, the old generations."
