Porn Star To Debate At Oxford

Ron Jeremy's Debate
MURFREESBORO ? In an unusual discussion that pleased many college students but disturbed parts of this Bible Belt community, a porn-film star said yesterday that pornography lets people harmlessly indulge their daydreams.

''It's just a fantasy, plain and simple,'' Ron Jeremy, a veteran of some 1,000 adult films, said at Middle Tennessee State University. ''We just want to be left alone and make our movies as best we can.''

But his debate partner, a feminist writer battling violence against women, said porn exploits the women who star in it ? and even exploits the viewer, who is taking part in a ''form of glorified prostitution.''

''The way I look at it, that's a perfect system so that people can abuse young girls,'' Susan G. Cole said.

MTSU students ? and a few older people, too ? packed a campus auditorium to hear Jeremy and Cole, who found an audience that seemed quite familiar with the topic.

''Ron Jeremy is kind of a household name,'' MTSU senior Shawn Thompson said in an interview before the debaters took the stage. ''Everybody should know who he is.''

But not everybody felt the debate was a harmless or valuable exercise. Several dozen people, led by state Rep. Donna Rowland, R-Murfreesboro, quietly demonstrated outside the theater before the debate, singing ''Jesus is the rock of my salvation, his banner over me is love'' and holding signs with messages like ''Pornography Destroys'' and ''Remember Sodom and Gomorrah.''

Rowland, who called the protest a ''prayer vigil,'' said MTSU shouldn't be sponsoring a debate about a practice it forbids its students from enjoying in their dorm rooms.

Bob Glenn, vice president for student affairs, said he appreciated that viewpoint but felt it was more important to allow the conversation.

''In areas regarding free speech, the best remedy is more speech, not less,'' Glenn said.

Jeremy, more recently seen on WB reality show The Surreal Life, is one of the most prolific male porn actors ever.

But he also holds a master's degree in special education ? a fact that drew some gasps from the audience ? and taught special education students before making what must be one of the most radical career changes ever.

Cole, a magazine writer and editor in Canada, is the author of Pornography and the Sex Crisis and Power Surge: Sex, Violence and Pornography. She and Jeremy are on a campus tour that stopped at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville four weeks ago.

The Ideas and Issues Committee of MTSU's Program Council, which brings speakers and events to campus, decided to present the debate after singer Janet Jackson bared her breast during the Super Bowl halftime show last winter, setting off a national dialogue on public obscenity.

MTSU's administration disagreed with the students' choice, saying Jeremy's past would become a distraction, but also said it wouldn't censor that choice. The event cost about $14,000 in speakers' fees, travel, production costs and the like, with the money coming from student fees, not tax dollars, Glenn said.

Many of the students applauded Jeremy, and when Cole asked how many had seen their first porn film before they legally became adults at age 18, hundreds of hands shot up.

But Cole got her share of applause, as well.