Olympia Film Society hosts ‘porn festival for people who don’t like porn’

Typically, The Olympian doesn’t publish stories involving pornography unless criminal activity is involved.

But Hump Fest, screening Saturday at the Capitol Theater, doesn’t feature typical porn. The one-night festival of short films, curated by Seattle sex columnist Dan Savage, is as much about relationships and humor as it is about explicit sex. It features people of various ages, sizes and body types — some dressed, some undressed — along with animations.

Savage describes Hump Fest, now in its 13th year, as “the porn festival for people who don’t like porn.”

“It doesn’t fit this raunchy, disgusting image that I think people have when you say the word pornography,” said Audrey Henley, the Olympia Film Society’s executive director. “Some of it is fun and hilarious … and some of it is really sweet and loving, and some of it is raw, unadulterated, no-holds-barred sexual encounters, but it’s all very sex positive. That’s why I always felt it was a good program for us.”

Henley also likes the festival’s emphasis on amateur filmmakers and the fact that Olympia filmmakers have been featured over the years.

Many Hump participants choose to keep their involvement private. One local who isn’t hiding is Scott Steven Erickson, whose “A Pervert’s Guide to Avoiding Loneliness” was included last year.

The film features Erickson playing and singing an original song about the difficulties of finding love when you’re polyamorous and kinky. The twist: He’s clad only in a jockstrap.

“It’s a great film — super funny,” festival executive producer Robert Crocker said in a phone interview.

Erickson said, “My original plan was to play the song completely naked, but after a few takes, I realized that I was not singing as confidently as I normally would. Just putting on that tiny article of clothing was enough to give me the confidence to perform the song the way I normally would.

“I have received a lot of really positive feedback, not just locally but from people who saw the screenings across the country,” said the singer-songwriter whose album “Scott Steven Erickson and the Antithesis of Cool” will be released next month. “My song apparently really touched a lot of people.

“It was a good experience and a good opportunity to expose more people to my music,” he added.

Last year, there were two Hump Fest screenings in Olympia, and he attended one. “The host asked me to stand up, and people cheered,” he said.

There was an awkward moment, though, when he ran into one of his coworkers in the theater before the screening.

“She had no idea I was going to be on screen, so I’m sure that took her by surprise,” he said, laughing. “But when I saw her at work the next week, she was pretty supportive, so that was cool.”

Olympia screenings began in 2012, but local filmmakers were participating even before that.

Kanako Wynkoop of Olympia took home the festival’s Best Humor prize in 2009. Her film — which shall remain nameless here — isn’t pornographic, but its subject matter is definitely for adults only.

No Olympia filmmakers are included in this year’s festival, Crocker said.

The festival tours all over the country, but only audiences in Seattle, Olympia and Portland, where the festival screens each November, get to vote for the winning films, which compete for $15,000 in cash prizes. Besides Best Humor, categories are Best Sex, Best Kink and Best in Show.

Initially, there was some controversy over bringing Hump to the Capitol Theater, Henley said. “People were worried what the community would think.”

She has no regrets, though — well, except perhaps the time she saw a theater volunteer on the big screen.

She said she’s heard only positive feedback about the screening, and it’s popular. In past years, there’ve been two screenings in a single evening, with the earlier one selling out; this year, there’ll be just one.

“People are genuinely cool at this screening,” she said. “It’s not creepy and weird. It’s a giant party. A lot of laughter comes out of the theater and a lot of clapping and cheering.

“It’s a wild roller coaster, but it’s tasteful.”

If you’re considering attending, though, you might want to know that not every film is tasteful.

Take “Breakfast in Bed,” which was last year’s runner-up in the Best Kink category. A recent Slate article about the festival described the film this way: “After a morning romp, a boy finds a creative way to warm a stick of butter to body temperature before squirting it on his boyfriend’s toast.”

This story was originally published November 3, 2017 at 3:47 PM with the headline "Olympia Film Society hosts ‘porn festival for people who don’t like porn’."