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. recommended

Lindy West was born an unremarkable female baby in Seattle, Washington. The former Stranger writer covered movies, movie stars, exclamation points, lady stuff, large frightening fish, and much, much more....

22 replies on “Twenty-One Things I Learned at My First HUMP! Ever”

  3. HUMP is totally awesome! Thank you The Stranger and thank you Seattle for getting it on!
    I’ve been to HUMP the last two years and it’s always fun. I can’t go this year, which is balls, but it sounds like it’s going to be a good one.

  6. You forgot to mention Seattle is filled to the brim with self-righteous, pass-aggressive, holier-than-thou dickheads.

    Oh, but by all means Seattle, celebrate how beautiul and unique and oh, you’re all such wonderful little snowfalkes who have all the answers.

    And Lindy, your writing is just sooooooo brilliant.

    Seriously…..SERIOUSLY?

  9. I’ll bite on the pass while you “sip” your coffee…. aggressive and not so into the but, or hole, jack….

    perhaps you would like to “get
    a job” driving around in a unmarked, “marked” car with an “unrecognizable” recognition to your antenna ball and a license(plate) so as to look like a stupid federal ‘wanna’-be jack?

    Or, perhaps you are a frustrated internet cop who gets thrown off the kiddy trail witness stand because you sell info to paparazzi vendors….

    Or, perhaps you are a political speech writer who now sees the “gig” is out for Jan. 9, 2009…

    and if so, are you worried about your homelessness situation and my apparently random attack for no real (good) reason in defense of (p.p.s.)….

    Or perhaps your the only one so far who wrote in to be critical of HUMP and poor little “lindy WHO” as if she isn’t capable of ignoring this space after work….

    or perhaps you have a PRINCE CHARMING ADOPTIVE PERSONALITY DISORDER FROM IMPERSONATING SOMETHING OR SOMEONE YOU SHOULDN’T BE INVOLVED WITH…..

    then again… maybe we LIKE to pick on you cause your easy and argumentative and esy to pick on like a easterner from NEW YORK … or BOSTON accented or maybe, maybe, maybe….maybe,maybe, maybe….

    maybe you got kicked off the local prosecution team or the ATF or the CIA or FBI… wait a minute…

    they CAN’T hire enough FBI agents now to do the job with the budget so fucked up ,so your proboly not one of them unless you were a bad FBI agent… were you a BAD FBI agent, jack?

    maybe your just being a “PEST” to agent lindy west….

    p.s., did I see and hear you driving around in Southpark this week?

  12. i’m sad i don’t live in seattle anymore. we’ll see how the election goes and if the gays can get marriage visas then hopefully we’ll be entering next year.

  14. Great article, and I’m curious, just like Dawn. Is there any way the unfortunate non-Seattle resident can experience any of Hump’s artistic videos?

  15. I wish The Stranger would set up an XTube account and fill it with the HUMP videos. I know some of the participants would not want their entries there, but I’ll bet others would – why not have the option? And then those of us who can’t attend can enjoy the fun as well. I’d give anything to see the lawnmower boy video from last year.

  16. i give hump maybe one more year at most. the crowd is becoming really really douchey. they said to turn off cell phones like 20 times before the thing starts. then a bunch of people can be seen from the back row using their cell phones. then the fake fuzz has to throw people out and interrupt the show.

    however cool “hump” is in theory, it’s wasted on people – douchiness will always triumph and subvert whatever else is truly free and liberating.

    sad, sad douches.

  17. As a straight guy, I get a visceral and unpleasant reaction to Gay porn. Doesn’t matter how pro-gay rights you are, straight guys just have this innate revulsion to gay porn.

    However, the gay porn films were definitely a step ahead of the straight porns in production value, artistry, and attractiveness of the participants. I must say that the straights were definitely outclassed by the gays this time around!

    Also, the Gay Porn Parody of Dune was laugh out loud funny, and the production values were unbelievable…

    PS: Rubber Ducky girl, dump your ducky and marry me!

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