Watching Porn

by Lynsey G

  You may be thinking that this sounds a bit gross. That these dudes swaggered around, pounding each other on the back and smashing beer cans on their foreheads to display their virility. Given the dispiriting nature of heteronormative maleness in America, particularly in 2009, I also assumed that egregious displays of dominance would be their modus operandi. But I was pleasantly surprised to find that the majority of male performers at Exxxotica were possessed of a quiet, smooth, and sane self-assuredness that was far more inviting.

  I SAW MR. MARCUS FROM across the expo and made a beeline for the subject of my first interview. He was dressed simply in dark jeans, a navy-blue T-shirt, and his trademark baseball cap, smiling at the fans and coworkers who greeted him. He wasn’t as tall as I’d expected, but he was just as heavily muscled as he looked in the movies, and he exuded a laid-back confidence that drew me in. When I introduced myself, he smiled warmly and came out from behind his signing podium to wrap a very large arm around my waist in a surprisingly soft embrace. He shook my hand gently, his dark brown eyes never leaving mine.

  I automatically turned bright red. I had expected him to be attractive, but I was unprepared for his magnetism, and I felt myself responding to his maleness the way I thought only naïfs in romance novels did: I may have actually swooned. He told me he hoped to see me later in the weekend, and I stammered a response before tottering away like a turned-on ninny.

  Over the course of the weekend, our paths crossed multiple times on the show floor and at after-hours parties. Each encounter grew friendlier until, on the last day of the convention, I sought him out at his signing booth to say good-bye. He stepped away from his booth, ignoring the line of fans, and placed a hand on the small of my back with expert precision. He drew me close and whispered into my ear: “You’re leaving? But I was looking forward to seeing you running around my hotel room naked tonight.”

  My jaw dropped. I felt myself flush from head to toe. I stepped out of the hug and stared at him with saucer eyes while his face crinkled into a broad smile. At a loss for words or appropriate behavior, I turned on my heel and giggled my way out of the convention.

  THE WHACK! CREW ALSO crossed paths with Sean Michaels, an industry veteran whose work spans decades of hardcore films. Michaels is often cast as the male “bull” who humiliates less masculine husbands, a dominant and sexually insatiable force of nature. But in real life he is courteous, articulate, and immaculately dressed. When we met him at the hotel bar, he was wearing a three-piece black pinstripe suit with an impeccably starched white button-up and a black bow tie, a matching black pinstripe fedora, and black dress shoes—with spats. He looked every inch the gentleman, and when we introduced ourselves as the WHACK! crew, he followed through on that first impression. We expressed our excitement at meeting him, and asked if he would like to adjourn to our room for some pre-gaming before the party started.

  And so we found ourselves stuffed into our cramped hotel room with one of porn’s greatest legends and a few hangers-on from smaller production companies in the NYC area, engaged in a heady conversation that ranged over topics as vast as the Buddhist outlook on life, to those as trivial as the choice of carpet color on the expo show floor. I was captivated by Sean.

  After an hour, he raised his beer bottle in a toast and told the room at large that he hoped he wasn’t offending anyone by saying so, but that he was honored to be in my presence because I was “a truly beautiful woman, inside and out.” Then he leveled a look of the most serious sexual intention I have ever seen right at me. Again, I went scarlet—damn my Irish heritage!—while I mumbled something about being my own woman. Then I added that I was actually in a relationship with Matthew, who was sitting right next to Sean.

  Without batting an eye, Sean turned to Matthew and raised his glass again in congratulations, and offering apologies if he’d offended either of us. Then he turned back to me and smiled. “Keep on being a lady,” he said. The lust was still apparent in his eyes, and I squirmed at its delicious intensity.

  When Sean eventually left, one of the hangers-on who’d watched the scene unfold burst into laughter. “Holy shit, Lynsey!” he gasped. “Do you know what would have happened if you’d gone back to his room?”

  The guys around me (I was the only female present) snickered.

  “No …” I replied, confused. “What do you mean?”

  “Have you ever seen any of Sean’s movies?” He arched his eyebrow.

  “Actually, no,” I admitted.

  “It would have been like this,” he said. He balled up his fist in front of his face, then mimicked the lowering of a zipper and dropped his forearm with a “thunk” onto the dresser. The implication was that Sean’s penis was the size of John’s forearm.

  Since then I have seen a few of Sean’s films. He was right.

  MOST OF THE SUCCESSFUL male porn stars I’ve met since that first Exxxotica convention fit the kind-and-confident mold. But it must be said that not every guy who has sex on camera for a living exudes the same warm, gracious presence as my two paramours in Edison that weekend. Every kind of person you meet outside the porn industry is also represented within it. And that applies to creepers whose self-confidence is higher than it needs to be.

  If you’re thinking Ron Jeremy, you’re right.

  On the first day of the expo, my cohorts and I spotted The Hedgehog signing autographs nearby, and I jumped into his signing line immediately. A picture of me with Ron Jeremy would be great for our budding magazine, and maybe I could schedule an interview. The white WHACK! Magazine T-shirts we’d had printed were perfectly suited for signing, so I whipped out a Sharpie and stood at the ready while I waited for his attention.

  When it was my turn, I approached Ron with a smile that faltered before we even said hi. After years of occupying the throne as porn’s most recognizable star, Ron didn’t place too much importance on maintaining a strictly professional demeanor. He was wearing a stained T-shirt, sweatpants, and Crocs. His thinning hair and mustache were both in disarray, and his stomach jutted out into the space between us as I offered my hand and introduced myself. Ron ignored my proffered handshake and slipped his arm around my waist, pulling me into a close embrace around his gut and grinning lasciviously.

  “Hi, baby,” he said. Then he kissed me on the lips.

  The kiss was pretty chaste, but in the second that it lasted I experienced a riot of shock, embarrassment, and annoyance. But I told myself I couldn’t be too angry that Ron Jeremy’s mustache was scratching my upper lip; I had been waiting patiently in a long line of fans who probably had hoped for a kiss, after all. Ron was in his natural habitat, and he had no idea that I was approaching him in a professional capacity. His professional capacity was having sex with women. All things considered, a kiss wasn’t so bad, even though I wasn’t happy about it.

  As Ron pulled back, I could hear my comrades from WHACK! giggling and snapping photos of my bright-red face. I ignored them and tried my best to forge ahead, asking Ron if he would sign my WHACK! T-shirt. He leaned in with the Sharpie I offered and made a small “RJ” with a little heart that took only a few seconds to complete. I mugged a faux-shocked expression for the cameras gathering nearby as he leaned over my chest, but then, egged on by the onlookers and my smiling face, Ron grasped my shoulder, turned me away from the crowd, lifted my shirt, grasped my left bra cup, and proceeded to sign my breast—all without missing a beat.

  “Mortification” doesn’t adequately describe my emotional state at that moment. “Revulsion” might be closer. And horror that Ron Jeremy was gripping my bosom in such a way that, though nobody else could see, he was able to view my entire breast, nipple and all, without my consent. And rage that my boyfriend and my editor were standing by, laughing and snapping photos from the sidelines as I was manhandled by a gross old man in front of a crowd.

  In my memory, this signature took a long time—significantly longer than the one on my T-shirt—but it probably wasn’t more than a few awful seconds. At least, I
hope it didn’t take long, because the uproar of emotions inside me left me so stunned that I couldn’t summon a reaction before he dropped my breast and pulled my shirt back down. I’d like to think that if more than a few seconds had elapsed, I’d have come up with an appropriate reaction, like slapping him in the face.

  As it was, I just plowed ahead with my sales pitch as if nothing had happened. I introduced myself and the magazine, gave him one of my business cards, and told him I’d love to get an interview sometime. He grabbed a stack of business cards held together by a rubber band, riffled through it for a moment, and, when he found the appropriate card, handed it to me while leaning in for another kiss.

  I endured it, then staggered away from the scene of the groping to collect myself and assess the situation. I looked down at the card he’d given me: a business card for the hotel we were both staying at, with his room number scrawled at the top beside his standard “RJ”-and-heart signature. No need to carry cards of your own when your face is synonymous with sex, I supposed. Groan.

  That night at the after-party, j. vegas, Matthew, and I had been let into the VIP section by Teagan Presley, a multiple award-winning performer (and former ballerina and gymnast) with a sweet smile and a sleeve of gorgeous tattoos. We were having a few drinks and watching the industry royalty interact when we saw Ron, this time in more party-appropriate attire—I believe he had on a suit jacket and jeans. Immediately, vegas made a show of pointing him out. “Hey, Lyns, it’s your buddy! You should say hi!”

  I threw a few swear words and a glare his way before turning to look pointedly in the other direction. A few minutes later, however, Ron had worked his way around the room. I looked away to avoid any recognition, but vegas stepped forward. “Hey, Ron!” he yelled over the thumping music. “Check it out! Your signature’s still there!” He pointed at me, indicating the shirt-dress I was now wearing, and what lay beneath it.

  Ron smiled at me, the memory of our earlier rendezvous twinkling in his eye, and said something to vegas that I couldn’t make out over the music. Then he stepped toward me, intoning, “This won’t take long.”

  Without ascertaining my consent at all, Ron Jeremy moved behind me, his stomach pressing into my back. He grasped me firmly around the waist, and, without so much as a “How do you do,” he began to … sort of … gnaw on my neck. I’m not sure what he was aiming for, sensation-wise, but I’m confident he was trying to show off his sensual prowess by making my knees buckle under the wave of overwhelming lust he was sure I would experience.

  That’s not the reaction I had, though. I think “horror” would be the most fitting term.

  For the few seconds that this humiliating scene lasted, I fought an internal war between shrieking, slapping, and running away … and gritting my teeth and bearing it. The atmosphere didn’t seem to lend itself to a freak-out: I was very much in Ron’s territory here, surrounded by industry folks, many of whom had been far more intimate with Ron than a mere neck-gnawing—but their encounters with him were consented to, pre-negotiated, and paid for. Would any of his coworkers have looked kindly upon me screaming and flailing at one of their elder statesmen? After all, I was here willingly, with the specific intention of interacting with porn stars. Would showing my true colors as a dyed-in-the-wool prude do me any favors? Would it be better to just let it happen and live with the embarrassment?

  Honestly, I just froze while all of this went through my head. My autonomic nervous system’s response was to play dead, like an opossum.

  He finally drew back and cheerily noted the crimson cast of my face before nodding at vegas, whose eyes had bugged out behind his thick glasses. “Gets ’em every time,” Ron said before turning to me. “I’ll see you later.” He grinned, waggling his bushy eyebrows. And then he was gone.

  Both vegas and Matthew burst into laughter.

  I gave them what can only be described as a death look. “You threw me to the fucking wolves, you rotten bastards!” I ground out.

  Teagan, sitting nearby, motioned me over to her table. “Did you just get attacked by Ron?”

  I nodded sadly. The group of performers at the table all shook their heads in understanding.

  Teagan put her hand on my arm reassuringly. “I’m sorry. He does that.”

  I gulped, uncertain if I was going to scream, cry, or laugh. “I don’t know what to do right now,” I told the group.

  Teagan lifted an eyebrow. “Get a penicillin shot!”

  The rest of the evening passed in an increasingly drunken haze. I busied myself with downing vodka, chatting with performers, watching the fans outside the VIP section, and eventually ending up in an after-after-party in the penthouse lounge of the hotel. The memories of Ron’s mouth and mustache on my skin were receding in the face of the beverages I had consumed, and by the time we were unceremoniously kicked out of the lounge by hotel security around 3:30 a.m., I’d nearly blocked it out.

  That’s when I noticed a missed call from a number I didn’t recognize, which had come in around the time the official after-party had shut down at 2:00 a.m. A text message had popped up about a minute after a voicemail had been left.

  “Hi, Lynsey,” the text read. “This is Ron Jeremy. Please give me a call when you have a chance.” I refused to think about it further, found my hotel room, and passed out.

  The next morning I checked the voicemail. “Hi, Lynsey, it’s Ron Jeremy. I noticed that we’re staying in the same hotel tonight. Why don’t you give me a call or stop by my room later? I’d love to see you.”

  I wasn’t surprised, exactly. But it was mystifying to me that a man who was literally world famous for having sex with thousands of women for pay was so keen to get into my pants on his time off. Didn’t he get enough play without stalking the hotel bar? Weren’t there enough adoring fans and professional acquaintances in attendance with whom his chances might have been better? Did he see me as some kind of challenge since I hadn’t melted in my panties when he’d chewed on my neck without my consent?

  I worked hard at avoiding Ron for the rest of the weekend. Our paths crossed a few times, but he showed no special recognition, either because he had actually forgotten who I was or because he took my silence as a slight. Either way, I was fine with the arrangement. And in the years since that first Exxxotica Expo, I’ve never spoken to him again.

  IT’S STRANGE TO THINK about after so many years, and after writing thousands of words on the topic of sexual consent. Today, I am appalled by my behavior with Ron. I wish I’d pushed him away, screamed bloody murder, accused him publicly of assault, and stormed away after the first kiss. It would have been a good idea to take vegas and Matthew aside and rip them apart for their complicity in both the show-floor spectacle and the after-party debacle. A complete freak-out would have actually been the mature, responsible, correct thing to do.

  But, as a rape survivor who has done a lot of work in the time since to understand the complicated intersections of assault and shame, I don’t want to put too much pressure on myself. As do most women who are sexually assaulted, I’d blamed myself completely for my own experience when it happened—I spent far too many hours obsessing over the nausea-inducing memories of the incident, telling myself I should have done something different, that I could have stopped it from happening if I’d just done this, that, or the other thing. The anger and guilt over a situation that I couldn’t have controlled hung over me for years, hurting me just as surely as did the man who victimized me. It took me years of soul searching to understand that I wasn’t at fault for what had happened to me, and even more years to forgive myself for a crime I hadn’t committed. And I have no interest in blaming myself further for what Ron Jeremy did to me—the infraction isn’t nearly so grave, but my immediate desire to implicate myself in its root says volumes about how upsetting it was.

  As is so often the case, hindsight is far clearer than the cloud of conflicting emotions experienced in the moment. Writing about it now, I’m feeling that too-familiar mixture of ne
rvous energy, sweaty palms, and general greasiness that comes over me when I recall trauma. It may sound trivial to some, given that I was never in dire physical danger, but I can’t state strongly enough how having one’s agency forcibly removed can leave a person with a piercing sense of violation. My body hadn’t really been harmed, but my dignity was bruised, along with my sense of physical autonomy. And my budding respect for porn stars was battered—not to mention my feelings for my friend and boyfriend, who’d stood by and watched.

  And this is where it’s important to note that the charges of second-wave, anti-porn feminism are not always wildly off target. Don’t misunderstand me: The idea that all pornography is rape is patently ridiculous. I absolutely and unreservedly support any adult human being’s participation in whatever non-harmful, consensual, sexual behavior they wish, and I do not think that the medium of pornography is inherently demeaning to women. At all.

  But I do recognize that within the historically male-dominated culture of the porn industry, where performers are quite literally selling their sexual bodies as commodities for consumption, the slope down to seeing human beings as sexual commodities can get slippery. Male privilege in the social contract that allows pornography to place monetary value on female bodies is the same male privilege that allows certain members of the porn industry to see women as things to be used. Clearly not all of the men in the industry see the world this way: I don’t believe that Sean Michaels, for instance, would ever have treated me with such disrespect. But I do think that, in my interactions with Mr. Jeremy, the male-privileged, female-objectifying mindset presented itself clearly. I was a thing to him—a thing that he could use to remind everyone present of his status. In his mind, my being there was reason enough to assume I wanted it.

  Gross.

  I do believe, however, that in the years between the Ron incident and the publication of this book, the landscape has changed significantly—both within the porn industry and without—when it comes to sexual misconduct. There has been a huge growth in public discourse about the difficult gray area in which I found myself with Ron that weekend: Issues like male privilege, slut-shaming, victim-blaming, and sexual autonomy have been discussed publicly and debated hotly in America and around the world.