Before we get to the winners...

Showing up to host HUMP! last Wednesday night, less than 24 hours after Donald Trump won the election, was difficult. Like everyone at On the Boards that night—like the majority of Americans who voted on Tuesday—I was still reeling from the results. But after welcoming everyone to HUMP!, and after walking everyone through HUMP's big three rules (no cell phones, no assholes, have fun), and after apologizing for all the "Make America Great Again" hats featured in this year's films*, I was happy to be in a theater full of people watching porn and not, say, at home in bed with the lights out and the covers pulled up over my head.

Like I said to the crowd that night (someone taped it, here's a partial transcript)...

"Don’t let anyone tell you that you shouldn't be here, at a porn festival, at a time like this. I am an old fag. And I was there in the 80s when my friends started dropping dead and we organized and we marched and we donated and we fought. But we also partied. We danced, we had fun, we watched porn, and we fucked. And all the partying and dancing and music and the laughter, and theater, and art, and porn, and all that fucking—it revived us, it reminded us what we were fighting for, and it kept our spirits up for the fight. The other benefit of all the fun we were having while we were fought for our lives? It drove our enemies crazy. They wanted us to be miserable. They wanted us on the floor, too depressed and distraught to leave the house. And when they saw us dancing, when they heard us making music, when they saw us creating art and making theater and watching porn, when they realized we were still fucking, it confounded them. That's when they realized we were not going to be easily defeated. We weren't going down without a fight and we weren't going down without a party."

I made the same point in my column this week. But it's a point that bears repeating as the news keeps getting worse: We are in for a long fight but we have to make time for pleasure and art and porn and music and dancing and fucking—because it will keep us sane and drive them nuts.

Okay! On to the winners....

THE 2016 HUMP! AWARDS

Best Sex
Fuck on the Mount - $2,000
Runner Up: Summer Fuckation - $1,000

Best Humor
Birthday Boss - $2,000
Runner Up: It’s Fucking Complicated - $1,000

Best Kink
Playing Scrabble - $2,000
Runner Up: Breakfast in Bed - $1,000

BEST IN SHOW
I’m Not Poly, But My Boyfriends Are - $5,000

Jury Award: Fucking Boring - $1,000

The HUMP! Awards are decided by audience ballot with the exception of the Jury Award, which is awarded by the HUMP! Jury.

More than 20,500 people went to HUMP! over the last two weeks in Seattle, Olympia, and Portland and the HUMP! 2016 program will tour North America starting in January. Unlike other short film festivals, there is no charge to submit a film to HUMP! Every filmmaker whose film tours with HUMP!—our little porn festival played in 30 cities last year—gets a percentage of every ticket sold. Information on making and submitting a film to HUMP! is here. A portion of the proceeds from HUMP! is donated to Planned Parenthood. HUMP! Supports Planned Parenthood and you should too. Donate here.

* About those hats: Every year, when we do the call for submissions, we invite the filmmakers to include a couple of random props in their movies. HUMP! filmmakers have fun working the props into their films, HUMP! audiences have fun spotting them. This year's props: the accordion and "Make America Great Again" hats. In our defense: Again, we pick the props when we do the call for submissions and the call for submissions for HUMP! 2016 went out a year ago—back when no one thought Donald Trump could possibly win the GOP nomination, much less the fucking election.