HUMP! with the Redhead Bedhead (not what it sounds like)

Over the weekend I went to HUMP!– I’m struggling with punctuating this entry as the exclamation point seems to be an actual part of the event name… HUMP! is billed as “The Pacific Northwest’s biggest and best amateur-produced porn festival” which leads me to wonder exactly how many amateur-produced porn festivals we have here… I’m seriously asking, I’m still new to the area and for all I know there are hundreds of festivals with names like RIDE!, SUCK!, BEND OVER! and THAT’S OKAY IT HAPPENS TO EVERY GUY AT ONE TIME OR ANOTHER!

Anyway, this was my first time at such a thing and so I’m going to tell you all a bit about it. First off, understand that this is a popular event- I went on Saturday afternoon at 3:30 which felt like a kind of awkward time but most of the other time sold out before I even thought to look into tickets and the Saturday 3:30 show was pretty packed. The introvert who fears everything and is always intimidated was not super-comfortable in this throbbing mass of hipsters who were really impressed by how cool they were being by attending the porn festival. I felt nowhere near outwardly cool enough for this event- thank god for dark movie theatres…

So, once seated we were greeted by Dan Savage (this was a surprise to me- apparently it shouldn’t have been but it was) who explained the rules of HUMP! which can basically be boiled down to “don’t be a jerk”. More specifically they were:

“Shut off your cell phone and don’t ever have it out because the amateur porn-making-people are trusting that they will not end up on the internet here”(this did not prevent multiple phones from ringing mid-show because it’s 2013 and 1/2 the population still can’t master cell phones)
“No openly responding negatively”. Dan elaborated: “Assholes on the screen, not in theatre” and “you will see things that were you at home on your computer you would not choose to click on”
“No sexual acts in theatre” – interestingly that last one was a new addition this year, apparently they had never specified that before.

I like that the rules really come down to taking care of each other as people- don’t do stuff that will be upsetting to other people.

Also, there were ballots- for voting.

And then we were off! Below is a rundown of what I saw- I’m not giving “reviews” here but I realize that in describing these my opinions do become clear. That said, hats off to everyone with the balls (no pun intended- or ALL the pun intended) to participate.

An “E! True Hollywood Story” style profile of a fluffer- silly, funny and full of cock-sucking. These folks committed and it was awesome.
A hipster house party with some random girl on girl sex.
A gorgeous rope work/domination scene
A clever, adorable play on porn that featured absolutely no actual nudity or sex and still kind of rocked my world.
A very pretty all-girl play party with very pretty music and lots of jumping around (editing-wise, not actual jumping)
Animated dirty rabbits.
Cross-dressing flight attendants, awesome costumes and several butt plugs.
Something that I interpreted as us getting to see what a masturbating woman was picturing during her session (by it coming to life for us)- others I spoke to saw this differently.
Super sexy spoken word with a gorgeous woman. I want to see this, hear this, read this, everything this all over again.
Anime porn…
A super-hot male couple telling bedtime stories that come to life – Goldilocks and the 3 Bears was awe-some!
Something that felt like it was trying to be pretty porn- it looked like pretty porn (not in the Camille Crimson way, in the corsets and french manicures way).
An awesome couple experimenting with fire play- I want to hang out with these people and have them light things on me!!
A Kid Rock -style video.
A genderqueer couple and porcelain dolls and wine- there was a lot happening here.
An orchestra of genitalia. It’s as fun as it sounds.
An animated disney parody w/ touches of Indiana Jones.
Something I couldn’t really follow that I think was supposed to be like changing channels through various amateur porn (?)
A take on 1984 with sex.
Super-hot men having super-hot sex and then getting to rewind through their whole night until we get to the beginning where one of the super-hot men is watching porn of super-hot men having super-hot sex. It was like the circle of super-hot.
A commercial parody involving shooting butt plugs.

So, what did I take away from HUMP! ? A couple of things:

It’s awesome that people are willing to put themselves out there in this way.
It’s awesome that people are so excited to come see it.
I really like porn featuring/aimed at gay dudes -who knew?
I think that what makes good amateur porn is a lot like what makes good sex- if you are trying to make it into what you think it “should” be it’s not going to be anywhere near as much fun as if you just have fun with it! The pieces that I loved here were the ones where the people clearly enjoyed what they were doing. Now, there weren’t any where I felt they weren’t enjoying themselves per se but some of the pieces felt like they had set out to make “porn”, like what they thought porn has is supposed to be and those felt a little empty.

So, that was my first amateur porn festival! Now I’m off to see if the THAT’S OKAY IT HAPPENS TO EVERY GUY AT ONE TIME OR ANOTHER! festival is a thing…

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