Concessions

‘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.)