Film

Concessions

"You walked into my mouth, my anus, and my trap!"

by Lindy West

'Sup, sluts? Guess what? I saw you guys naaaaaaaaked!!! Boobs. Ha-ha. But, dudes, seriously; seriously, dudes (and by "dudes" I mean dudes and ladies and in-betweens and Larry King and all y'all), I think you dudes are just great. Just great! This year's HUMP! was the most polished, the most professional, the most consistently funny, the least off-puttingly earnest, the most penis-burningy, and the least grindingly-dull-from-time-to-time HUMP! ever. EVER! I laughed basically the whole time—and not uncomfortable, I-don't-know-what-else-to-do-with-my-face laughter, either! The real kind! I love you dudes.

You have lots of interests. Apparently some of you fantasize about fucking a dirt monster, or a Dumpster full of bread dough, or E.T. Fair enough. Some of you are very attractive. Some of you like to take the word "anal" and rub it right up against the word "hook" and then go to town (Buttholetown! Yikes!). Sometimes there is a wire whisk involved. Some of you want to extinguish a Black & Mild on the business end of your johnson, and some of you are a penis who is also a rapper, and some of you just want to roll around all cute and naked. Some of you are lesbian puppets made of dry felt. One of you is Larry King.

After the show—among the throngs of flushed, giddy HUMP! fans exiting On the Boards—I ran into local famousperson Lynn Shelton (director of Humpday and its little brother, the 2009 HUMP! entry Beyond Gay), who giggled and described what she had just seen as "sweet." And it really, really was. As Dan Savage said in his introduction, "When people sit down to watch HUMP! they're volunteering to watch porn that takes them outside their usual comfort zones. Straight people watch gay porn, gay people watch straight porn, vanillas watch kink, kinksters watch vanilla." There's something communal, supportive, awkward, squirmy, and sexy about it. I might use the word "adorable," if I wasn't about to write about anal hooks.

As for anal hooks (the squickiest aspect of this year's festival and the only one confirmed to have induced instantaneous vomiting): Clearly the anal hook is not deadly. It appears to be a device, made of stainless steel, that one can purchase at a certain type of store and then put into one's butt. Now. Is it alarming to watch the hook go into the butt? Mildly. Is it double alarming (and anatomically confusing) when the hook hooks around and goes ALL THE WAY inside the butt? So that there is a full J shape taking up space inside the she-rectum? (What's the layout in there, by the way? Do your poops come out like curly fries?) YES. This is a surprising moment. But that's what HUMP!'s all about: covering your eyes and celebrating other people's surprising moments. And vomiting. Sometimes.

(And speaking of HUMP! and moments and supportiveness and celebrations: October 25 at 7:00 p.m. in the Rendezvous Grotto, concerned friends will be hosting a benefit for one young Jonathan [father, husband, leukemia-haver]. Along with dancing, drinking, and general carrying-on, they'll be screening a director's cut of HUMP! 3 winner Queer Safari. $10 at the door. Fuck cancer [and tape it!]. Visit www .welovejonathan.org for more info.)