Ron Jeremy – yes, that Ron Jeremy – created a bit of a stir at the Consumer Electronics Show last week when he told his audience that videogames are worse for kids than porn.
The Hedgehog squared off against Craig Gross, an anti-pornography activist and co-founder of the porn addiction support site XXXChurch.com, in “The Great Porn Debate” at this year’s CES in Las Vegas. When the topic turned to kids, with Gross suggesting that porn had become a kind of sex-ed that creates “false expectations,” Jeremy countered by insisting, “We don’t want kids to watch porn.”
But if they do happen to catch a Ron Jeremy classic like Lone Greasers, More Than a Handful 13 or Hung Wankenstein, he doesn’t think it’s the worst thing that could happen. “[Studies have] found that violent videogames are much bigger a negative influence on kids,” he added. Jeremy didn’t cite any sources – this wasn’t the most academically rigorous debate of all time, after all – and, with the focus of the debate being porn, little thought appeared to be given to the remark by the audience.
The natural reaction among most gamers will no doubt be to decry the opinions expressed by the world’s most famous porn star as utterly inaccurate and misinformed, and while I do think that he’s working from a platform of ignorance, I’m not quite as certain that the sentiment is entirely wrong. I wouldn’t want my kids (the hypothetical ones, that is) playing Modern Warfare 2 or becoming overly familiar with Ron’s body of work, but is it really reasonable to say that one is significantly worse than the other?
Source: PC Magazine
