WWW- If Ron Jeremy, the most famous male porn star in America, put me on hold and called me “honey” just one more time, I was going to …

“Wait a sec, sugar.”

Phooey.

Vexed as I was at being treated like one of his girls, what was I going to do?

Some people, like that gum-smacking ’70s-era waitress at your local diner and your gay hairdresser, Fabian, can just get away with it.

Besides, the XXX-rated film celeb’s phone is ringing off the hook. He explains he’s just been away for a week and there’s important business to attend to.

“Yeah, OK,” I relent. “I’ll wait.” But he’s gone before I finish.

As I listen to him take another call about some party that night he says he’ll try to make, I picture him on a yacht, somewhere in the Caribbean, sipping on a margarita in a white bathrobe, hairy chest, protruding gut and all, surrounded by leggy, bikini-clad women.

It’s the cheesy prologue to every average guy’s stud-muffin fantasy – and mildly disturbing.

This regular Joe Schmo is the most unlikely sex symbol in the world.

Which, ironically, explains his universal appeal.

Just think of how us love-challenged girls latched onto the painfully average Bridget Jones character, played by Renee Zellweger in Bridget Jones’s Diary, to quell our fears of a lonely eternity.

Today, the portly 52-year-old Jewish New Yorker, who once worked as a special education teacher and came to star in over 2,000 adult films, has become a pop culture icon.

Every pubescent male who dreams of having sex one day, has likely seen the porn king in action.

[The man who goes by the nickname, “the Hedgehog,” was in Edmonton Monday to give a talk about his life experiences and chosen career path at Grant MacEwan College’s City Centre campus, 10700 104 St.

An Evening with Ron Jeremy took place in the multi-purpose room at 6 p.m.]

I caught up with the “clown prince of porn” himself, last week for an interview.

It’s not every day you discuss a man’s penis size with him like you’re talking about the weather.

“So, you’re nine-and-three-quarter inches. Is that erect or flaccid?” I inquire, trying to sound nonchalant.

“That’s hard,” he confirms, seeming bored, as if he’s been asked the same question 100 times that day.

We talk about everything from Viagra, orgasms and GQ to banana-eating contests, gestalt (meaning an organized whole that is perceived as more than the sum of its parts) psychology, his desire to have children and his new book, Ron Jeremy: The Hardest (Working) Man in Showbiz (Harper Entertainment), which is due out on March 1.

How did a man with a master’s degree from Queens College end up in this field?

“My girlfriend submitted one of my pictures to Playgirl to be used for the ‘Boy Next Door’ feature back in 1978. I was an actor, first, who was teaching in case acting didn’t work out. The magazine had a reputation. Celebrities were on the cover. It was a classy thing to do. I’d rather be doing GQ stuff but I’m five-foot-seven-and-a half,” says Jeremy, a.k.a. Ron Jeremy Hyatt.

He changed his name to protect his family shortly after appearing in his first skin flick.

The veteran porn star says the first time he had sex in front of the camera he was worried it would be a disaster, but he rose to the occasion.

Speaking of performance – he segues into his view on Viagra – today, the little blue pill has come to the rescue of many a married man, but it shouldn’t be played around with by the younger, more virile.

“It’s not for you, boys. You’ll need a whole jar when you’re 50.

“Viagra is a marvellous gift to the world of monogamy. It’s easy to get turned on by the blond down the block or the lap dance at Deja Vu, but with your wife, who you love to death, it may take a little extra,” says Jeremy, who has never been married.

“I’d kill myself if I ever had to take a pill. Although I’m not as fast anymore as I should be at liftoff.”

He admits he would still like to have children someday but it’s not easy finding someone who is down with what he does for a living.

“It’s difficult, I know. Maybe it is time to quit,” he says.

Men are the props in porn flicks and girls are the fantasy. But now that more women are consuming porn, is demand changing for the kind of men featured in adult film, I ask. In other words, despite the fact that he’s no Chippendale, does he have what the ladies want?

“Women get a kick out of porn, but it’s still more of a men’s fantasy. The women are looking more at the girls in the film anyway,” he says.

While men relate to the guy next door, which is him, women want the whole package (no pun intended) – which he can provide.

“They like a sense of humour. If you’ve got a bit of a personality, a smile, a twinkle in your eye, with a decent-sized penis, you’re in. Women go for the whole gestalt thing,” says Jeremy.

It’s the guys, anyway, who are more hung up on penis size. For women, it’s not the boat, but the motion of the ocean, he adds.

Jeremy claims to have slept with more than 4,000 women and was named the top porn star of all time by Adult Video News, so when he says what type of woman floats his boat, his answer is hardly surprising.

“She has to have a pulse.”