COLUMBIA, MO – On the most recent stop of their touring debate series, legendary porn star Ron Jeremy and feminist magazine editor and playwright Susan Cole faced off Thursday night in front of an audience of students at the University of Missouri-Columbia.During the debate, which took place at Jesse Auditorium on the MU campus, Cole and Jeremy argued about whether the portrayal of women in pornography is harmless or has the effect of denigrating women and encouraging a cavalier attitude towards violence against women.
Cole asserted that porn encourages viewers to side with domineering male figures and encourages the degrading treatment of women.
“I’m not saying porn leads to sex crimes,” Cole said, “but the fact is that porn is proliferating in a culture that suggests more and more and more that violence against women is OK and we shouldn’t do anything about it.”
Jeremy countered that porn – of the legal variety, anyway – is merely a harmless form of entertainment for the adults who enjoy it, and that it is less harmful than many other forms of entertainment that are available to the public.
“We’re a small microcosm of a society as a culture, and they’re trying to put the blame on us,” Jeremy said of anti-porn activists like Cole. Jeremy added that, “unless you count spanking” he’s never committed an act of violence against a woman.
Jeremy asserted that R-rated movies contain images far more violent than those one finds in porn and that violent video games specifically target a market that is younger and more impressionable than the intended audience for adult entertainment. Jeremy supported his argument by showing a video game advertisement which depicted a nude woman impaled by a metal pole
“And kids see this,” Jeremy noted. “We’re not aiming towards impressionable minds, we’re aiming for adults.”
Cole rebutted Jeremy by referencing a scene from one of his own films. In one of Jeremy’s videos, Cole said, “the woman is talking too much and what does he do to shut her up? He puts his penis in her mouth.”
According to accounts in local media sources, Cole’s characterization was met with raucous laughter from the assembled crowd. Cole waited for the mirth to subside, and then chastised the crowd – ““Did you hear that? That is the sound of contempt for women.”
On balance, according to local media reports, the audience seemed more sympathetic to Jeremy’s arguments, with some students in attendance saying they thought Cole had “overstated” her case.
Cole also finds the public’s appreciation of Jeremy’s oft-noted “everyman” appeal troublesome. “Can you imagine that a woman who looked like him would be the world’s most famous porn star?” Cole asked rhetorically. “No, and that’s because that’s how our society works.”
