It was the early 2000s, and The Stranger coworkers Brad Steinbacher and Dan Savage floated a NSFW idea at, well, work: Could they put on a homemade porn festival? And publish a call for submissions in the famous alternative newspaper? 

“It was a big ask. Send us a VHS tape that you made—because it was before digital everything—and let us watch it, and then we're gonna put it on a movie theater screen for a weekend," Savage says; at the time he was the alt-weekly's editor in chief. "And you know, your boss or parents might show up."

For three full years, publishers nixed the idea over and over, not convinced that anyone would mail in submissions, much less buy tickets. But they couldn’t kill the project. When Savage finally got the green light in early 2005, dozens of tapes flooded in. The Stranger booked the Northwest Film Forum for the inaugural HUMP! Film Festival, and tickets sold out instantly. They extended the run, and those seats went just as fast. 

“Oh my God, there's an audience for this, an audience that wants to experience porn collectively,” Savage remembers thinking. He had a hit on his hands.

Now in its 20th year, HUMP! flips the concept of sleazy adult movie theaters (“how our grandparents watched pornography,” says Savage) to something modern, a celebration of sex, kink, and diversity across sexual orientation and gender expression. The festival screens about two dozen short films in each iteration,from hundreds of submissions, all hand-selected by Savage and his jury. He does a lot these days—podcasting, writing sex advice column “Savage Love,” and authoring books and essays—but still curates his brainchild. 

So what makes a HUMP! film? Documentaries, kinky scenes between duct tape puppets, films starring salt and pepper shakers, people being hit in the face with pies over and over again, and James Bond parodies have all screened over the years. Some aren’t even explicitly sexual, but the lineup is about as far from commercial pornography as it gets.

Savage found that audiences responded best to films that “sometimes didn't look like porn at all, often stuff that was funny. And it was this marriage of graphic porn—actual sex on film—and commentary or comedy or something else going on at the same time that usually wouldn't be happening in a straight porn clip.”

While the festival did implement a streaming option during the early years of COVID, the HUMP! ethos has always bent toward collective viewing in physical theaters. And that’s important. At home, viewers have a fast-forward button and a litany of choices catered to their gender expression, sexual orientation, kink, or mate target. At HUMP! audiences climb aboard a roller coaster, and they’re along for the ride. 

“People come to HUMP! to have fun and be challenged and be scared and have their minds blown,” Savage says. One of his favorite parts every year is a moment—a palpable shift—in each audience. 

It always goes the same: first, there’s the shock: “The gay guys going, ‘Oh my god, there's giant cunnilingus happening on this screen in front of me.’” Then comes a distinct camaraderie as audiences realize everything they share (“desire, vulnerability, a sense of humor, risk taking”) within each film. By the end, a room of 400 is cheering for each film. “You're seeing the straight guys cheer for the gay guys, and the vanilla people cheering for the kinky people. And there's just this moment where everybody feels seen and safe and affirmed,” he says.

HUMP! has grown well beyond its initial Northwest Film Forum run. These days, the fest screens two lineups each year. “It was criminal how many great films we were leaving out to get it down to one evening of films,” Savage says. Even with the second slate of screenings, selection has gotten tougher: About half of submissions would make the final cut during the first few years, but now Savage estimates only 5 to 10 percent go all the way. 

Films that claw their way onto the docket are rewarded with an equal cut of ticket sales, and audiences vote to crown Best Sex, Best Kink, Best Humor, Best in Show, and Most Creative titles—winning erotic bragging rights and a cash prize. While the fest hasn’t forgotten its PNW roots, it’s not just a Seattle phenomenon anymore. The fest tours 40 cities around the globe, from Bend to Amsterdam, and submissions hail from even further.

It got especially meta in 2009 when the late hometown director Lynn Shelton released Humpday, a comedy film whose fictional protagonists attempt to film a HUMP! submission—even though they're both straight and both male.

“It’s a real Seattle thing—not quite like Microsoft or Starbucks—but it’s something that was created in Seattle and spread,” says Savage of the festival. “Seattle was the right place to beta test and launch HUMP! because of who people are and what sex culture in Seattle is like.” He knows Seattle as a place with active kink, swinging, and queer scenes, but also dedicated community spaces that center more than just sex. 

The fest’s longest run is its Seattle residency, from February 14 through March 15 at Lower Queen Anne’s On the Boards. Tickets for the 20th anniversary show go for $25, and Savage expects a year of surprises: “Anything comes and goes at HUMP!, literally.”