Dear Readers: The twentieth anniversary HUMP! Film Festival — the world’s biggest and best festival of short porn films — kicked off in Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco over the last two weeks. Our amazing new collection will be touring to more than forty cities over the next few months. (Go to humpfilmfest.com to find out when HUMP! is coming to you!) We had a big party in Seattle to celebrate HUMP!’s twentieth birthday — big thanks to Naomi Price-Lazarus and Breona Mendoza from Seattle Sex Trivia for hosting — and I took questions from the crowd and I’m using those questions this month’s Quickies column. There are a few questions about HUMP!, which I’ll answer first, some good sex questions, and a few personal ones that I normally wouldn’t answer but I’m making an exception. — Dan
1. Congrats on twenty years of HUMP! Did you know...
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Dear Readers: The twentieth anniversary HUMP! Film Festival — the world’s biggest and best festival of short porn films — kicked off in Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco over the last two weeks. Our amazing new collection will be touring to more than forty cities over the next few months. (Go to humpfilmfest.com to find out when HUMP! is coming to you!) We had a big party in Seattle to celebrate HUMP!’s twentieth birthday — big thanks to Naomi Price-Lazarus and Breona Mendoza from Seattle Sex Trivia for hosting — and I took questions from the crowd and I’m using those questions this month’s Quickies column. There are a few questions about HUMP!, which I’ll answer first, some good sex questions, and a few personal ones that I normally wouldn’t answer but I’m making an exception. — Dan
1. Congrats on twenty years of HUMP! Did you know it would be such a big success when it started?
We did not see it coming.
When we made our first call for submissions twenty years ago — when we invited people in Seattle to send us their amateur porn — we weren’t sure we would get any submissions. I mean, were people in Seattle going to send us homemade porn to be screened for Seattle audiences that could include their friends, neighbors, and coworkers? The answer to that question was yes — we got tons of submissions that first year — so, we booked a theater and announced the First Annual HUMP! Film Festival. Then we wondered if anyone would show up. I mean, would people come to a theater and sit next to strangers in the dark and watch pornography the way their grandparents used to? The answer to that question was also yes — tickets for the first HUMP! Film Festival sold out within hours — and a few years later we were taking HUMP! to other cities.
We get so many great submissions for HUMP! that last year our dirty little film festival came out as biannual: HUMP! Part One tours in the spring and HUMP! Part Two tours in the fall. For the full list of cities HUMP! 2025 Part One is coming to this spring — along with the trailer, ticket info, and everything you need to know about submitting your porn for HUMP! 2026 — go to humpfilmfest.com!
2. What was the most surprising submission to HUMP! this year, why was it surprising, and did it make it into the festival?
HUMP! audiences love surprises — as does every member of the HUMP! Jury — so the most surprising submissions almost always get accepted. My favorite surprise in HUMP! 2025 Part One: an original live-action movie musical starring a horny gooner and a sentient cum sock. Little Sock of Whores is surprising, sexy, laugh-out-loud funny, and gloriously pornographic. The kind of film you can only see at HUMP!
3. What is the single most likely thing to get a HUMP! submission rejected?
Length. We reject a lot of films that would’ve been great — and would’ve made it into the festival — if they were two- or three-minutes long but wear out their welcomes/premises at five minutes. If you’re thinking about making a film for HUMP!, remember that five minutes is the maximum running time, not the minimum!
4. What is the most useless thing you know how to do?
I know how to find the clitoris — useless for me, useful for most other men.
5. What is the one way that sex has changed over the last twenty years that has surprised you?
I’m surprised by how much less sex people have these days. We’re entering the second decade of a sex recession that shows no sign of abating, and I don’t think the efforts of “pro-natalist” Republicans to renormalize sexual assault, ban abortion, restrict birth control, and make abusive marriages harder to escape are going to turn things around. I’m also surprised by the growing number of hyper-online queer incels way more outraged by sex scenes in movies, age-gap relationships, and kink at pride than they are by attacks on LGBT civil rights.
6. One tip for keeping a relationship fun and adventurous?
New relationships feel effortlessly adventurous because — at the start — you’re the adventure they’re on and they’re the adventure you’re on. To recapture that sense of adventure in a long-term relationship, you need to go on adventures together. Now, I can’t assign you an adventure — my idea of an exciting adventure might be your worst nightmare — but so long as you make a conscious effort to keep doing new things with, for, and to each other, your relationship will remain fun and adventurous.
7. What is your opinion of 69ing?
It’s fine as an appetizer — it’s fine when you’re rolling around with someone, it’s fine when you’re transitioning from one position to another, it’s fine if you have a little time to kill before the next episode of White Lotus — but it’s a lousy main course.
8. What was your first kiss like?
My first kiss that really mattered — my first kiss from a boy — was wonderful. I was gay and closeted, he was bisexual and closeted, and we were each pretending to be the kind of straight boy who was super secure in his heterosexuality… which is how I wound up with my head on his lap as we sat on the couch in his apartment talking about politics late one night after his girlfriend went home. Things got really quiet for a second and then he said, “What would you do if I kissed you?” Praying it wasn’t a trap, I said, “I would kiss you back.” And then he kissed me, and then I kissed him back. My first kiss — which was quickly followed by my first blowjob and my first faltering attempts at PIB — was problematic in a couple of ways. He was 23, for starters, and I was 16; he was the boyfriend of one of my girlfriends, who was also 16, and she accused me of seducing her boyfriend (who clearly had a thing for teenagers and teenager drama) and the whole thing was a mess. But what I took away from that experience — in addition to a badly bruised heart — was the realization that being asked for consent (“What would you do if I kissed you?”) was a thousand times sexier than being lunged at.
9. How did you become a sexpert?
By accident. I started to write an advice column thirty years ago as a joke — because wouldn’t it be hilarious if a gay man gave sex advice to straight people? — and immediately started getting real questions that required me to come up with real answers. And here’s one of the dirty little secrets about advice columnists: even if we had to look something up and/or consult an expert before answering a question, we like to pretend we knew the answer all along. By looking things up and consulting actual experts over the years, I learned a few things along the way…. like where to find the clitoris. But I wouldn’t describe myself as a “sexpert,” as I hate that word almost as much as I hate the word “nipple.” (Just call it a tit, people.)
10. My partner told me she does “vabbing” before she fucks other people. Is this a real thing?
And today I had to look something up “vabbing”: “the application of vaginal secretions as a perfume; [a term] popularized on TikTok in 2022 as a way of attracting men.” First: #NotAllMen. Second: Even if only your partner was doing this, it would be a real thing. But seeing as “vabbing” has its own Wikipedia entry, it’s safe to say your partner is not the only woman doing this.
11. Do you ever feel jealous about Terry having another primary partner? If so, how do you navigate that?
My husband doesn’t have “another primary partner,” since we practice — unapologetically — a hierarchical form of polyamory. So, I’m Terry’s husband, Tom’s Terry’s boyfriend. I’m the primary, Tom’s the secondary. I’m Miss America, Tom’s First Runner Up. And we navigate jealousy like any other couple/throuple/quad/quint: we yell and scream, we go to bed angry, we talk it out in the morning.
12. I can only come to dark fantasies and they’re getting darker. How can I make this sustainable without running out of material? I’m a little scared of where this might take me.
If you can’t realize your fantasies for ethical reasons… never act on them. If you can’t share your fantasies without scaring people off… keep your mouth shut. If you run out of material… use your imagination. If you’re worried you might be a danger to yourself or others… seek professional help.
13. I was in a relationship for two years and I still miss her. How do I get over her?
The fastest way to get over someone is by getting under someone else — that’s what people have always said, and now we know it’s true.
14. Who is your hall pass?
Who isn’t my hall pass?
P.S. Hall passes are something people in monogamous relationships give their partners; someone in a monogamous relationship who’s in possession of a hall pass has permission to fuck a celebrity if they ever get the chance, which of course they never will. Since I’m not in a monogamous relationship, I don’t need a hall pass. But here’s a partial list of male celebrities I would wanna fuck if I ever had the chance, which of course I never will: Michael Urie, Charlie Barnett, and Mike Faist.
15. What advice would you give to someone who is just starting to feel freer in their sexuality in their forties?
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