On his member: I have a policy—if a girl wants to see my penis, she first has to show me her tits. Just ask Paris Hilton or Traci Bingham.

On Viagra: I don't know why the idea of Viagra bugs me so much. I guess it's because I consider it cheating. Most male porn stars today use some form of Viagra or VigRX or ExtenZe, but I'll never touch the stuff. The minute I need a pill to get wood, I'm going to retire from the business.

On starting out: When the October 1978 issue of Playgirl [featuring Ron Jeremy] came out, I went to the nearest newsstand and bought two dozen copies. The salesman looked at me like I was some kind of pervert. He probably thought that I was gay, and very, very lonely.

On his first film: I was already having second thoughts. When the producers gave me the address for today's shoot, I had expected it to be a studio warehouse, or at least something that passed for a proper movie set. Instead, it was at a town house in lower Manhattan, which had been loaned to the producers just for the weekend. It all seemed too amateurish, like a student film that was operating on a limited or nonexistent budget. I wondered if it was too late to make a break for it.

On his nickname, "The Hedgehog": When I walked out of the shower, feeling refreshed and rejuvenated, Bill Margold was waiting for me, along with Seka and a few of the other actors. He took one look at me and burst out laughing. "What's so goddamn funny?" I asked him.

"Will you look at this guy," he said to the others. "He's all pink and furry, like a little hedgehog."

On doing Marilyn Chambers: I got a call from a photographer for Chic [a onetime Larry Flynt skin magazine] who asked if I was interested in doing a photo-shoot with Marilyn Chambers for a new book. I nearly crapped my pants. This wasn't just another job: It was the chance to work with a legend.

The next day at the studio, I had butterflies in my stomach. When Marilyn waltzed in the room, naked as the day she was born, I nearly blacked out. The shoot was soft-core, meaning there wasn't any actual penetration. We were supposed to SIMULATE sex, but the moment I crawled onto the bed with Marilyn, I got a whopping boner that wouldn't go away. "Oh, come on, Ron," yelled the photographer. "Hide it behind her leg or something."

"I'll try," I told him.

"We can't shoot anything until you get that thing out of the way."

"I'm doing what I can."

"I have an idea," Marilyn said. She had a mischievous grin on her face, "You can hide it right here." Boom, right in the vagina.

On sucking his own cock: Very few people believe me when I tell them I don't enjoy blowing myself, but it's true. Conventional wisdom has it that self-fellatio is every guy's dream. As George Carlin once observed, "If I could reach, I'd never leave the house." And sure, it sounds like a good idea in theory. But when you're actually doing it, unless you are gay or bisexual, it can be a profoundly disturbing experience. A part of me is thinking, "Hey, you've got a nice set of lips on your dick. That feels pretty good."But the other half is screaming, "Ron, there's a fucking dick in your mouth! Get it out! Get it out!!"

It doesn't matter if you are a die-hard Ron Jeremy fan or not. You know the guy and, in a way, sort of want to be him. The Hardest (Working) Man In Showbiz wavers between self-indulgent and self-effacing, but is overall an entertaining and sometimes lighthearted chronicle of one man's remarkable life. It's available at bookstores and HUSTLER Hollywood stores everywhere.

This article first appeared in the July 2007 issue of HUSTLER.