THERE'S SOMETHING magical about HUMP!

HUMP! is the Pacific Northwest's oldest, biggest, and only amateur porn festival. Thousands of people crowded into theaters in Portland, Seattle, Bellingham, and Olympia over two weeks to watch amazing, hilarious, sexy, kinky amateur porn. Straights watched and cheered for gay porn, gays watched and cheered for lesbian porn, vanillas watched and cheered for kinky porn, kinksters watched and cheered for vanilla porn, genderqueers watched and cheered for gendermuggles, and vice versa.

There's an energy in theaters during a HUMP! screening that's difficult to describe. Yes, people are shocked at times—people are watching porn that they wouldn't choose to watch at home—but people come away energized and elated. The joy that everyone seems to take in each other's pleasure is what I love most about HUMP! The little porn festival we started eight years ago is all grown up now, and it's both a celebration of sexual diversity and evidence of the healthy sex culture that we've created in the Pacific Northwest. I wish HUMP! came around more than once a year!

Before we get to the HUMP! 2013 Awards—which are determined by audience ballot—I want to thank everyone who made or appeared in a film for this year's festival. This year's HUMP! was spectacular, and you're the ones who made it happen. Thank you so much, and we hope you will all submit again next year!

Okay! On to the prizes! HUMP! Awards are given in four categories: Best Humor, Best Kink, Best Sex, and Best in Show. And the winners are...

Best Humor ($1,000 Prize): The Legend of Gabe Harding. This moving documentary tribute to a legendary porn-set fluffer opened the festival, and it was a runaway audience favorite. Blow, Gabriel, blow!

Humor Runner-Up ($250 Prize): Anal Alley. A late-night television infomercial for a buttplug bowling set that makes good and dirty use of all three of this year's "extra credit" props: buttplugs, bowling pins, and Hillary Clinton!

Best Kink ($1,000 Prize): Fun with Fire. A man and a woman experiment with flash paper and fire—and high-definition, slow-motion video technology. This one had audiences squirming in their seats.

Kink Runner-Up ($250 Prize): His. This vertigo-inducing film features a male dom, a female sub, and some expert suspension bondage.

Best Sex ($1,000 Prize): Ouroboros. This hot gay sex rewind/infinity loop—complete with Hillary Clinton coasters—starts with a come shot and ends with a man in bed watching the sex he'll be having later on his laptop. Ass-pounding and mind-bending!

Sex Runner-Up ($250 Prize): Art Primo. This beautifully shot film features a diverse group of stunning women, nudity, sweat, and some playful slapping—an amazing slice of all-women erotica, and a favorite with HUMP! audiences!

Best in Show ($5,000): After all the ballots were counted—more than 16,000 of them—fewer than 20 votes separated the top two vote-getters in this category. We thought about doing a recount, but recounting ballots is a huge pain in the ass. It took us a week to do the first count! And the vote was so damn close! So instead of doing a recount and picking one winner, we decided to make some HUMP! history and declare a tie in the Best in Show category! So the Best in Show prize goes to Ouroboros, the hot gay sex infinity loop that also won for Best Sex, and to Fuck, a moving and erotic spoken-word monologue. But instead of splitting the $5,000 prize for Best in Show between the two winners, we're doubling the grand prize money so that both sets of filmmakers will be awarded $5,000. Congratulations, you BOTH deserve it!

Thanks to everyone whose film appeared in HUMP!, congrats to the winners of this year's HUMP! Awards, and we'll see you next year at HUMP! 2014!