Dan Savage Takes HUMP! On the Road

If sex columnist and political commentator Dan Savage hasn't enough to do, he's spending his spring traveling the country with the HUMP! Festival. Though hosting the annual program of amateur porn, which he's been doing since its inception in 2005, is a labor of love. Back then Savage challenged readers of his Savage Love column in the Pacific Northwest to "get their hands dirty" and send him short films - no longer than five minutes - in which they channeled their inner porn star.

In the beginning they received a modest number of submissions, but what they saw showed the enormous diversity of his readership. And it was an immediate success in Seattle and Portland, which led Savage and his fellow HUMPsters to open the Festival up nationwide. The number and quality of films increased, as did their originality and technique. Diverse porn for the masses.

"We bill HUMP! as an amateur porn festival," Savage wrote in 2012. "But it's more than that. It's rare for people to watch porn that takes them outside their comfort zones --rare for people to watch porn that, if they were home alone in front of the computer, they wouldn't choose to click on and watch. At HUMP! straight people watch gay porn, vanilla people watch kinky porn, gay people watch lesbian porn. And people laugh, they gasp, sometimes they cover their eyes. But at the end of every film people clap and cheer. It's moving and wonderful and newcomers don't expect it. The whole festival is a celebration of sexual diversity."

The Festival comes to Providence, RI this weekend before heading to Washington, DC, Seattle, Ann Arbor, MI, Portland, ORE, Philadelphia, and Bend, ORE. For information about further dates visit the HUMP! Film Festival website.

Choosing the films

EDGE caught up with Savage recently for a conversation about the Festival.

EDGE: What is the vetting process for film submissions?

Dan Savage: After the films roll in, the HUMP! Jury convenes. It's me and about eight other people. The jury's been around for about a decade. And we sit in a conference room and bring it a lot of food and sit there until we watch every submission. Sometimes it can take 12 hours, sometime it takes two days; then we spend a week going over the films, talking about them, ruling some in, ruling some out, then ruling some back in again until we've assembled what we think is a really good program.

EDGE: Are the films chosen for their subject matter and diversity? What is the most important criteria?

Dan Savage: You know we want people to feel represented when they come to HUMP! But the film has to be interesting. The film has to be good. That's really our first criteria. Are the films compelling? The films, though, don't need high production values. This is amateur porn. Some of the films may be made for fun by professional filmmakers, others are made on people's phones where the production values aren't great, but what is being said or represented, or the humor and the passion is so great, we had to include it.

A great viewing experience

EDGE: Do the films reflect the technological advances in filmmaking techniques since HUMP!'s inception?

Dan Savage: We had films in the festival 12 years ago that were made on flip-phones. The quality may have been really low, but the filmmakers made that look like an artistic choice. Now with everyone having great cameras on their phones, the quality is indistinguishable from the films shot by professionals.

EDGE: You are half-way through this year's tour. What have audiences been like?

Dan Savage: The tour has been great. Audiences are getting bigger and bigger. Audiences come to HUMP! and love it. HUMP! I like to say is for people that don't like porn because so much of it is anti-porn. People don't like porn because it's dehumanizing. I think that HUMP! porn is deeply humanizing porn. These are films made by people for fun and for the love of it. And to have a great experience with their friends and lovers. You can see the joy in the films at HUMP!.

Outside comfort zone?

EDGE: With the diversity of the content, can a viewer be expected to be pushed outside their comfort zone?

Dan Savage: Definitely. If you come to HUMP! you are coming to a film festival where you aren't in charge of the content. It's not like when you masturbate at home in front of the computer where you only see what you want to click on. You are going to watch at HUMP! what we click on for you. We don't really hear from people that are offended. We try to let people know that they're going to see things that are challenging and outside their comfort zone. None of the films are longer than five minutes, so that if you are seeing something that you are uncomfortable with you can shut your eyes for a few minutes and it will be over.

EDGE: Have any films pushed you outside your comfort zone?

Dan Savage: Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Something called 'Rosebudding,' which I don't think you should Google because it's really graphic. Not that I want to disparage other people's pleasures; some people like it, but I couldn't watch it. But I am a gay man who watches more porn because of HUMP! than most gay men watch in their lifetime, so I am down with it. One of the fun things about Hump because you have guy guys watching lesbian porn; straight guys watching gay porn; and all people watching kink porn. It's everybody watching each other's thing and enjoying it. In that way it is kind of magical and really a lot of fun.

What has he learned

EDGE: Are there any restrictions on content?

Dan Savage: No animals. No poop. No minors. Other than that, we take the films on a case-to-case basis.

EDGE: After ten years, what have you learned from working on HUMP!?

Dan Savage: That vulvas are more diverse that penises.

EDGE: Do you have issues with mainstream porn?

Dan Savage: I have issues with all sorts of industries where I see people are abused. There are definitely porn production companies and companies that abuse people. And I would like to see them go out of business, and one of the ways to do that is to point to the ethically conceived porn out their in the world and watch that instead.

EDGE: Do you think porn faces censorship if a Republican is elected president?

Dan Savage: We saw attacks on porn under Reagan and Bush father. There was the insanity of pushing abstinence during the Bush administration. A Cruz administration would go after Planned Parenthood, go after porn, go after whatever it could. Maybe Trump would be better because his wife was a soft core porn model once upon a time. Maybe he would smile more on porn than Ted Cruz.

EDGE: What do you think of Ted Cruz?

Dan Savage: I think he's a vile piece of shit. I have nothing else to say about that man.

EDGE: Recently on 'Real Time,' Bill Maher said he would choose Ted Cruz over Donald Trump. How would you choose?

Dan Savage: Oh my God. I don't want to quote Lindsay Graham, but he did actually say it was a choice between being shot or being poisoned. I don't know what I would do. On gay issues perhaps Trump would be more malleable, but I hope we never have to make such a choice.

EDGE: On a recent episode of "Real Time with Bill Maher," Maher chose Ted Cruz over Donald Trump if he had to pick between the two. It's an odious choice, to be sure, but whom would you pick?