Hump

Twenty-One Things I Learned at My First HUMP! Ever

All That and a Plate of Biscuits Is Coming Your Way

by Lindy West

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Hump

• All That and a Plate of Biscuits Is Coming Your Way by Lindy West
• Hump 4: The Films
• Hump 4: The Details

For all the details on HUMP! times and tickets, click here.

Although I've been associated with this dirty, filthy rag for a few years now, I have so far stayed away from HUMP!, the annual amateur-porn contest and jewel in The Stranger's dirty, filthy panties. Maybe it's because I'm admittedly skeeved out by public displays of sexuality (e.g., the time I went to the strip-club lunch buffet and then had to dry-clean my own brain), and so sitting in a room with a whole lot of clandestine man- and lady-boners watching my neighborhood barista get pleasured with the business-end of a bicycle pump didn't exactly sound like my cup of unidentifiable fluid. But this year, as film editor, I have certain duties and responsibilities. Duties and responsibilities that involve your genitals. Hooray for us all.

My introduction to HUMP! consisted of the following: four hours in a cozy room with a couple of gay dudes, a bunch of straights, a tub of cookies, no alcohol (!?), and approximately one million eight-minute videos from Seattle's best and brightest penises and vaginas.

And it was great. This year's HUMP! entries are clever, funny, sweet, technically impressive, totally fucked, adorable, bizarre, brilliant, and totally fucked again, in that order. It was, on the whole, a very instructive evening. Here is what I learned:

1. A lot about the human butthole.

2. Nothing about the imports and exports of Azerbaijan, irrigation in the Nile Delta, the complete filmography of Stacy Keach, lemurs, the freezing temperature of rocket fuel, Maria Shriver's favorite places to eat when she visits Santa Barbara, medieval France after the death of Charlemagne, or the nutritional properties of dark leafy greens such as kale. None of that is covered, just FYI.

3. My goodness. Some of you have large penises.

4. Who doesn't like naked bodies? Everyone has one, and everyone knows that everyone else has one, and everyone's is different, and some people's are awesome. Seriously, raise your hand if you don't like naked people. Liar.

5. Straight people, we get it. You're in love. You're in love and you want the whole world to see it so that all our voices shall join in the holy song of your love and rise into the heavens until your love coats every star in the sky. Just like you coated each other. In your, ahem, love. (No, seriously, good for you.)

6. You guys really, really like dogs. I mean, not in that way (I hope), but almost every single one of these videos has a dog in it somewhere. Peekin'.

7. Eight minutes is a really, really long time.

8. Eight minutes is no time at all.

9. Having sex with a Real Doll is not the same as having sex with a real woman. It is, however, very much like having sex with a real dead woman. Even if you could somehow microwave it first (where did you get that gigantic microwave?), it's still just a toasty plastic corpse. Also, could you put some sunglasses on that thing so it'll stop staring into my afterlife? Or just paint over the eyes or whatever.

10. About the human butthole again—the human butthole is STURDY.

11. Real Dolls are not.

12. There is almost nothing more disturbing than the jagged gashes that open up in the joints and throats and groins of well-used Real Dolls.

13. Seriously. SERIOUSLY.

14. Quit trying to glue her groin area back together, man! That shit is not going to work!

15. If I have sex with you, will you promise to throw that thing in the garbage?

16. I was just kidding. Get away from me with that glue.

17. Lesbians and FTM trans-persons: Whoooooa. Okay. I had no idea about your ways. I mean, the strap-ons are a gimme, as is the rubbing (who doesn't love rubbing?). But I was not aware of the whole "Okay, I'm going to take this dagger and put it on your vagina" business. And I certainly didn't know about the hammers. And maybe I didn't expect quite so much choking. But you go, lesbians and FTM trans-persons! You do your thing! Alls I'm saying is I didn't know.

18. A flying cartoon penis is more or less always funny.

19. When it comes to entendre, less is more. Remember that. Less. LESS ENTENDRE.

20. Gay dudes win. Gay dudes are the funniest, the hottest, and have the best time. We should all be so lucky to be gay dudes. I mean, not that I want to actually transform into a dude. I'm perfectly happy the way I am—I'm just saying, they're really, really good at making entertaining amateur-porn videos. Seriously! I don't have some crazy straight-girl gay envy. I'm not lying! Wow, this took a weird turn. I DON'T WANT A SEX CHANGE, NOW CAN WE PLEASE STOP TALKING ABOUT IT?

21. You, Seattle, are super hot. And funny. And fucked-up, in all the good ways. You live in a country where, unfortunately, a sizable portion of the population thinks they have the right to directly interfere with your sex life. But fuck 'em. You also live in a city where hundreds and hundreds of supportive, sexy people can get together and watch each other have sex and laugh and cry and maybe vomit and then laugh again. So fuck the religious right, right in its collective butthole. (Which, as I mentioned, is extremely sturdy and pliable.) And make sure to vote.