From the Aug 25 – Aug 31, 2005 issue

Film

Seattle Got Humped!

Our First Annual Amateur-Porn Contest Was a Big, Hot, Sweaty, Throbbing Success

by Dan Savage

When we FIrst started talking about hosting an amateur-porn contest—over drinks, of course—the nays far outnumbered the yeas. Seattle was too chickenshit, the naysayers insisted. Nobody would enter—who would want to make a porn tape that the entire city could see? Not that they should worry, someone else chimed in, because nobody would come—who wants to watch a bunch of regular folks having sex?

There was only one way to find out if it would work, I argued: Announce that we were having the contest. Tell Seattle's sexual adventurers, horndogs, and filmmakers to get it on film, offer a cool grand prize, then sit back and wait. If no porn arrived by the deadline, we could always cancel the thing.

Forty-three entries, four sold-out screenings, and one packed afterparty later, the naysayers have been spanked. Hump! wasn't just a success—it was a pussy-chompin', cock-suckin', pirate-fingerin' triumph.

But we weren't the folks who made Hump! a success. That honor belongs to all The Stranger readers who entered the contest. Without their willingness to put their asses on the line—and on tape, and up in the air, and on one another's faces—we would've been sitting in an empty theater last Saturday night. Instead we were sitting in a packed house watching homemade porn that ran the gamut from charming amateurism to truly inspired filmmaking. Hump! had everything from hardcore BDSM to tender moments shared by people who were obviously in love. No one who attended will ever look at the Space Needle the same way again. If you missed Hump!, you missed a sandwich cookie getting the cream fucked out of her by a well-hung cupcake and a man fucking a cantaloupe. That last one is hard to describe—you had to be there.

Literally. The original copies of all the films shown at Hump! were returned to the filmmakers and our only copies—a master and a backup—were destroyed after the last screening. If you missed Hump!, you missed Hump! That violated melon lives on only in the memories of the hundreds of people lucky enough to get their hands on tickets.

While the first annual Hump!—you bet your ass we're going to do it again—was foremost an erotic delight, we also like to think of it as a slap at the American Taliban. Empowered by the reelection of George W. Bush, conservative "values voters" are on the offensive. The anti-sex, anti-choice, anti-gay, anti-Darwin, anti-porn shock troops of the religious right have been on the attack since November. But here in Seattle over 200 people—directors, cast members, crew—pushed back, asserting their fundamental right to enjoy themselves and their bodies however they see fit. That is, in a word, glorious.

Also glorious were the screenings themselves. When the first two screenings sold out we added two more. We could have added four more, the demand for tickets was so great. And judging from the laughter, gasps, and applause, any trepidation people felt about watching porn with a group of strangers quickly vanished once Seattle's amateur porngasm hit the screen. After each screening, flushed patrons filed out of the Northwest Film Forum. People took the voting seriously, and there were heated debates about which film deserved to take top honors. Bo Logan's Jack-Off Extravaganza? Pirate Vs. Ninja? Boobs for Brains? Open Invitation? Melonomania?

Also hotly debated was the shortage of boy-on-boy action. With the exception of a brief scene in Dane Ballard's Life's Been Good to Me So Far, Hump! was an entirely girl-on-boy and girl-on-girl affair. Why did gay men fail to rise to the challenge? We have no idea. But dozens of gay men who attended Hump! swore to us that they would make films for next year's contest. Get busy, boys. Hump! 2006 is only 12 months away.

So who won the trip to Las Vegas and took home the Lubey?

The second runner-up was Old School, a mixture of classic stag and pinball groping.

First runner-up was Bo Logan's Jack-Off Extravaganza, the moving story of one man's journey into self-discovery.

And the top vote-getter, the winner of the Lubey and the trip to Las Vegas, was Don't Stop Believing, an erotic film about the importance of... earthquake preparedness? Again, you had to be there.

A big thank you to everyone who made and submitted films to Hump! and everyone who attended. Now get busy planning your films for next year's contest!