WEBVTT - Are You Interested in an Arrangement? 0:00:03.000 --> 0:00:04.240 School of Humans. 0:00:05.960 --> 0:00:09.600 Sanctum Unmasked is about a sex club and describes various 0:00:09.640 --> 0:00:12.840 sex acts. Please use discretion where and when you listen. 0:00:17.560 --> 0:00:22.079 It's ten am on a sunny LA Saturday on a 0:00:22.120 --> 0:00:24.560 bubbly blonde wakes up in her low, scaleless apartment to 0:00:24.640 --> 0:00:28.800 her dog's Scout, impatiently licking her face. She gets up, 0:00:29.000 --> 0:00:32.800 makes coffee and scrolls Instagram and The New York Times interchangeably. 0:00:35.880 --> 0:00:38.440 She takes Scout for a hike in Griffith Park, the 0:00:38.520 --> 0:00:41.280 trail up to the Hollywood Sign, of course, then meets 0:00:41.280 --> 0:00:44.560 a friend for lunch. She orders the Little Gem salad 0:00:44.600 --> 0:00:47.199 instead of the egg and cheese bagel she actually wants, 0:00:47.280 --> 0:00:49.639 noting that she's working later and doesn't want to look 0:00:49.720 --> 0:00:54.760 five months pregnant, a mistake she made last month. At home, 0:00:54.840 --> 0:00:57.720 she does four hundred sit ups in front of reruns 0:00:57.720 --> 0:01:04.440 of Gilmore Girls, and then she starts the grooming process. Shower, 0:01:05.160 --> 0:01:07.720 intense conditioning masks to sit on her bleached hair while 0:01:07.760 --> 0:01:12.399 she shaves everything else. She calls her mom for a 0:01:12.440 --> 0:01:16.880 quick ketchup while aggressively tweezing stray hairs from her bikini line, ouch, 0:01:17.920 --> 0:01:21.920 rinse hair, apply fake tanner, moisturizer, hair serum. She throws 0:01:21.959 --> 0:01:25.080 on jeans, Converse, and her favorite ex boyfriend hoodie and 0:01:25.200 --> 0:01:33.080 calls an uber to the Sanctum mansion. In the green 0:01:33.200 --> 0:01:36.319 room with a handful of other Sanctum performers, she ditches 0:01:36.360 --> 0:01:39.399 the sweatshirt and sneakers and slips into a robe. A 0:01:39.440 --> 0:01:44.240 makeup artist begins caking on her foundation in feathery eyelashes. Tonight, 0:01:44.280 --> 0:01:47.360 she's performing in the live sex show. Now she has 0:01:47.440 --> 0:01:50.480 to sit for like ninety minutes while the woman meticulously 0:01:50.520 --> 0:01:54.400 applies rhinestones to her boobs to create a makeshift diamante bra. 0:01:55.080 --> 0:01:58.200 She takes a large shot of vodka, followed by an aldoyd, 0:01:58.840 --> 0:02:04.280 and now she's ready. Each time a Sanctum party rolls around, 0:02:04.520 --> 0:02:07.280 she and the other performers put in all this effort, 0:02:07.720 --> 0:02:11.040 always aware that as sex workers, their bodies are part 0:02:11.120 --> 0:02:16.519 of everyone's experience. Okay, so I made that scene up, 0:02:16.720 --> 0:02:21.280 but I'm probably not that far off. Since its inception 0:02:21.360 --> 0:02:24.400 in twenty thirteen, sex work was happening at Sanctum in 0:02:24.560 --> 0:02:28.720 various forms. Some are pretty straightforward. The monthly party became 0:02:28.800 --> 0:02:31.320 known for its elaborate live sex shows, so they would 0:02:31.320 --> 0:02:33.960 obviously hire performers to have sex with each other in 0:02:34.000 --> 0:02:37.080 front of the guests. But there were other more gray 0:02:37.200 --> 0:02:39.800 areas of exchange of sex for money happening too. 0:02:40.720 --> 0:02:44.000 I mean, he was running prostitution, but it was like indirect. 0:02:44.480 --> 0:02:47.000 It was an eyewink prostitution if nothing else. 0:02:47.639 --> 0:02:50.760 That's journalist Mike Saeger again, the writer from Esquire who 0:02:50.760 --> 0:02:55.760 shadowed Damon. Now reminder, we live in a puritanical society 0:02:55.800 --> 0:02:59.160 where the consensual exchange of sex for money is illegal, 0:02:59.639 --> 0:03:02.720 meaning at Sanctum and basically everywhere else in this country. 0:03:03.000 --> 0:03:06.120 Negotiating payment and boundaries in the arena of sex work 0:03:06.200 --> 0:03:09.400 is often vague and indirect, leaving a lot of room 0:03:09.400 --> 0:03:14.000 for misinterpretation. Throw in some entitled billionaires, very young women, 0:03:14.520 --> 0:03:18.119 copious amounts of alcohol, and probably some white powder too, 0:03:18.639 --> 0:03:22.960 and unsurprisingly it can get messy pretty fast. 0:03:23.440 --> 0:03:27.400 Some of the high rollers, they were assured of being rolled. 0:03:28.160 --> 0:03:30.120 At some point it was charging one hundred and forty 0:03:30.120 --> 0:03:32.880 five thousand, and like, how are you going to not 0:03:33.040 --> 0:03:35.240 have troubles with the people that are spending that much 0:03:35.280 --> 0:03:35.800 money with you? 0:03:36.520 --> 0:03:39.320 What did these men who paid exorbitant amounts of money 0:03:39.320 --> 0:03:42.400 to get into Sanctum think they were buying what were 0:03:42.440 --> 0:03:47.440 the rules? Were their rules? In this episode, we're going 0:03:47.520 --> 0:03:51.000 to explore the intersection of sex, money, and power at 0:03:51.040 --> 0:03:53.600 Sanctum through the lens of sex work. 0:03:54.600 --> 0:03:57.280 When I was back in my newspaper days, everything always 0:03:57.280 --> 0:03:59.040 had to be black and white, you know. I think 0:03:59.080 --> 0:04:05.160 there's like a lot of gray with this. People's pleasure, desire, needs, guilts, 0:04:05.320 --> 0:04:09.360 all those things come to a flash point with sex. 0:04:18.160 --> 0:04:22.799 Welcome to Sanctum Unmasked. I'm your host, Carly schortinau. 0:04:25.080 --> 0:04:25.240 By. 0:04:25.320 --> 0:04:27.920 Now you know Claudia who worked as an atmosphere model 0:04:27.920 --> 0:04:31.240 at Sanctum for multiple years. In our conversation, part of 0:04:31.279 --> 0:04:34.320 what we talked about was what exactly is a sex 0:04:34.360 --> 0:04:35.839 worker anyway? 0:04:35.960 --> 0:04:38.120 I have this discussion with so many people all the time, 0:04:38.160 --> 0:04:39.760 like are we sex workers or are we not? 0:04:39.880 --> 0:04:40.280 I don't know. 0:04:42.279 --> 0:04:46.080 I guess I haven't broken down the definition I guess of. 0:04:46.120 --> 0:04:47.560 Sex worker exactly. 0:04:47.600 --> 0:04:49.440 But I don't know if I necessarily consider that a 0:04:49.440 --> 0:04:53.920 sex worker at least as an atmosphere model. Maybe, if 0:04:53.920 --> 0:04:57.480 I was doing the performances, maybe, But I think that's 0:04:57.520 --> 0:05:01.320 such like a gray area saying it as far as like, oh, 0:05:01.320 --> 0:05:04.000 I don't want to be categorized into that because you know, 0:05:04.040 --> 0:05:06.000 at this point, when you do everything that I do 0:05:06.080 --> 0:05:07.600 in my day, like call me whatever you want to 0:05:07.640 --> 0:05:09.360 call me, I've been called worse because there are so 0:05:09.400 --> 0:05:12.040 many people that are so offended by the term sex worker. 0:05:12.120 --> 0:05:14.080 But to me, it's like, Okay, if I am, I am, 0:05:14.120 --> 0:05:14.839 If I'm not, I'm not. 0:05:15.360 --> 0:05:18.400 See, even just defining the term is a nebulous task, 0:05:19.040 --> 0:05:23.080 and this conversation has grown even more broad and confusing 0:05:23.360 --> 0:05:27.799 with the explosion of OnlyFans, you know, the extraordinarily popular 0:05:27.839 --> 0:05:31.840 subscription site that's primarily used to create and sell erotic content. 0:05:32.680 --> 0:05:35.680 Considering that your pre men neighbor and your great aunt 0:05:35.720 --> 0:05:39.120 Judy are both killing it on OnlyFans, well, are they 0:05:39.200 --> 0:05:39.920 sex workers? 0:05:40.600 --> 0:05:42.800 Like me? For example, I don't do any triple X 0:05:42.839 --> 0:05:45.520 on my only fans at all, So is me being 0:05:45.800 --> 0:05:48.760 naked on my only fans? Is that considered sex work? 0:05:48.800 --> 0:05:50.560 Or do I cross that line as soon as there's 0:05:50.680 --> 0:05:52.880 masturbation or partner involved. 0:05:53.560 --> 0:05:56.440 Some of the performers at Sanctum Hired, we're already working 0:05:56.440 --> 0:05:59.520 in what would traditionally be considered the sex industry, like 0:05:59.560 --> 0:06:03.560 some work to porn or aserotic dancers. Take Jenna For example, 0:06:04.040 --> 0:06:06.680 she was a performer at Sanctum for multiple years, but 0:06:06.800 --> 0:06:09.800 before that she worked in the adult film industry, and 0:06:09.839 --> 0:06:12.880 her experience had not been so great, being. 0:06:12.880 --> 0:06:16.360 Eighteen years old, not even watching porn and kind of 0:06:16.400 --> 0:06:21.960 like throwing myself into this whole bdsmkink dot com like pornworld. 0:06:22.520 --> 0:06:27.880 Starting out there, I kind of lost my boundaries and 0:06:27.920 --> 0:06:32.159 I sort of lost my concept of consent. I was 0:06:32.200 --> 0:06:35.440 going to parties where all of these porn stars were 0:06:35.520 --> 0:06:38.080 just in your face with their cameras, like trying to 0:06:38.080 --> 0:06:43.160 get content posts on their Snapchat subscriptions. So I mean, 0:06:43.400 --> 0:06:46.839 I was, you know, in this sort of culture where 0:06:46.839 --> 0:06:50.160 the consent didn't matter because oh, you're a porn star, 0:06:50.839 --> 0:06:51.960 the consent's already there. 0:06:52.920 --> 0:06:55.520 So this was the world that Jenna had become accustomed to, 0:06:56.120 --> 0:06:59.480 a world where people felt entitled to take without asking. 0:07:00.200 --> 0:07:02.279 But then she took a job at Sanctum as a 0:07:02.279 --> 0:07:06.080 performer in the live sex shows, and it instantly felt different. 0:07:06.440 --> 0:07:10.200 It wasn't really until I found Damon and Sanctum that 0:07:10.240 --> 0:07:15.360 I realized that there are so many different cultures within 0:07:16.160 --> 0:07:20.400 the adult world and the porn world and sex work. 0:07:20.880 --> 0:07:24.320 I felt like this energy around me at the events 0:07:24.400 --> 0:07:28.160 that I think is incomparable to any other type of 0:07:28.160 --> 0:07:33.360 sex work or any other sexual interaction that I've ever had, 0:07:34.040 --> 0:07:38.960 because you feel like this overwhelming sense of love, consent, respect, 0:07:39.800 --> 0:07:42.720 and that people are there for the art, people are 0:07:42.720 --> 0:07:45.400 there for the outfits, people are there for the performance, 0:07:45.800 --> 0:07:50.000 and there are not cameras or phones allowed. So that 0:07:50.120 --> 0:07:53.480 was the huge difference for me feeling like I had 0:07:53.480 --> 0:07:55.520 a choice overall. 0:07:55.680 --> 0:07:59.120 Jennera calls her experience at the club as extremely supportive 0:07:59.640 --> 0:08:02.440 because her boundaries were being respected, it became a safe 0:08:02.440 --> 0:08:04.320 space to explore her sexuality. 0:08:04.640 --> 0:08:09.480 It definitely gave me erotic freedom and a sense of individuality, 0:08:09.880 --> 0:08:13.240 less like a product and more like a person. It 0:08:13.360 --> 0:08:18.080 really gave me a sense of belonging at a time 0:08:18.200 --> 0:08:20.960 that I felt like I didn't belong anywhere. 0:08:21.040 --> 0:08:24.360 Which is incredible. And she's certainly not the only performer 0:08:24.400 --> 0:08:30.240 we talked to who felt this way. Damien wasn't only 0:08:30.280 --> 0:08:33.480 recruiting from within the sex industry, by the way, there 0:08:33.520 --> 0:08:35.959 was another big way he found girls to work the club, 0:08:36.559 --> 0:08:40.640 doing outreach on the popular sugar Daddy website seeking arrangement 0:08:41.240 --> 0:08:44.080 in case you need a refresher. A sugar Daddy website 0:08:44.120 --> 0:08:47.360 is a dating site that connects sugar daddies aka rich 0:08:47.440 --> 0:08:50.760 guys with sugar babies who tend to be younger women 0:08:51.160 --> 0:08:55.040 interested in dating rich guys. Convenient. Of course, there are 0:08:55.080 --> 0:08:57.920 sugar mamas on these sites too, and not all sugar 0:08:57.920 --> 0:09:00.920 babies are women, but I mean the vast majority of 0:09:01.000 --> 0:09:05.080 users tend to fit this heterosexual cysgender mold. So the 0:09:05.160 --> 0:09:07.559 idea is that people meet on these sites and then 0:09:07.600 --> 0:09:10.840 go on to create a quote arrangement, and that word 0:09:10.880 --> 0:09:13.640 can mean a whole range of different things, from a 0:09:13.720 --> 0:09:17.560 genuinely romantic long term arrangement that functions essentially like a 0:09:17.600 --> 0:09:22.160 traditional relationship but with an implied financial caretaking component, all 0:09:22.240 --> 0:09:25.839 the way to a solely transactional arrangement aka paying for 0:09:25.880 --> 0:09:30.880 a hookup and everything in between. Essentially, sugaring is a modern, 0:09:31.160 --> 0:09:34.720 increasingly visible form of sex work that's been dressed up 0:09:34.760 --> 0:09:38.720 and repackaged to be somewhat socially acceptable, and these sites 0:09:38.720 --> 0:09:42.280 are widely used by college students. Some even give free 0:09:42.360 --> 0:09:44.920 upgrades if you sign up with a dot edu college 0:09:44.960 --> 0:09:49.240 email address. So anyway, Damon had a profile on Seeking Arrangement, 0:09:49.360 --> 0:09:51.600 and he messaged women about potentially coming to work at 0:09:51.679 --> 0:09:54.360 Sanctum in various atmosphere roles. 0:09:55.160 --> 0:09:57.520 It was actually a great place to find girls who 0:09:57.520 --> 0:10:01.160 are open to sexual performances and all of I was 0:10:01.200 --> 0:10:05.640 always incredibly straight up about everything. I'm hiring atmosphere performers, 0:10:05.760 --> 0:10:08.080 you know, five hundred bucks for the night. They were 0:10:08.160 --> 0:10:11.840 dressed in wild costumes. Atmosphere girls were girls that were 0:10:11.880 --> 0:10:15.040 just you know that atmosphere. My old creative director Lena 0:10:15.080 --> 0:10:17.760 would create all these scenarios, you know, and there'd be 0:10:17.880 --> 0:10:20.520 like a girl who was a living table or a 0:10:20.600 --> 0:10:24.719 lamp or like, you know, some character or something, and 0:10:24.800 --> 0:10:27.040 they'd be, you know, in that character the whole night. 0:10:27.640 --> 0:10:30.439 And seeking arrangement was more than just a hiring tool, 0:10:30.880 --> 0:10:34.000 a slutty zip recruiter, if you will. It was also 0:10:34.120 --> 0:10:36.520 just a place to find young, hot women who might 0:10:36.559 --> 0:10:38.880 want to come to the party as guests for fun. 0:10:39.320 --> 0:10:41.920 And remember, women who made the invite list got in 0:10:41.960 --> 0:10:46.600 for free. Essentially, Demon was curating a very specific environment. 0:10:46.880 --> 0:10:48.840 He was filling the club with men who have a 0:10:48.840 --> 0:10:51.480 ton of money and women who are at least open 0:10:51.559 --> 0:10:54.920 to the idea of some sort of sexual exchange for compensation, 0:10:55.760 --> 0:10:59.520 something for everyone. So he throws them together adds some 0:10:59.640 --> 0:11:03.240 champagne and says, Okay, you guys, figure it out. 0:11:03.640 --> 0:11:06.520 People wanted to be in this world. They were meeting celebrities, 0:11:06.559 --> 0:11:09.480 They're meeting, you know, very wealthy men. The atmosphere of 0:11:09.520 --> 0:11:12.160 what was going on there was pretty amazing. You know, 0:11:12.240 --> 0:11:14.560 a lot of these girls were sort of looking for 0:11:14.760 --> 0:11:17.679 arrangements and stuff like that anyway, So this gave them 0:11:17.720 --> 0:11:21.360 an opportunity to meet people and to create the kind 0:11:21.360 --> 0:11:22.959 of life they wanted for themselves. 0:11:24.160 --> 0:11:27.280 It makes sense he's essentially just replicating the website, But 0:11:27.640 --> 0:11:28.760 in real life. 0:11:28.920 --> 0:11:32.600 I think venues like this are a great opportunity for 0:11:33.000 --> 0:11:34.800 money and fun. 0:11:35.520 --> 0:11:39.040 That's Elle Stanger. She's a sex educator who speaks about 0:11:39.040 --> 0:11:42.840 safety and consent, particularly in environments like these. She also 0:11:42.960 --> 0:11:45.520 works as a stripper in Portland. I wanted to get 0:11:45.600 --> 0:11:48.240 her take on this particular dynamic within the club. 0:11:48.800 --> 0:11:51.679 For the workers who are hustling, if they can name 0:11:51.720 --> 0:11:56.280 their own prices and negotiate, that's a great opportunity because 0:11:56.280 --> 0:11:59.920 you can also make regulars that will see you outside 0:11:59.920 --> 0:12:04.960 of that particular venue. And I understand why they would 0:12:04.960 --> 0:12:07.720 want the workers to be happy and to populate the 0:12:07.800 --> 0:12:10.319 venue with a lot of them. Because they want to 0:12:10.320 --> 0:12:12.920 be able to charge, you know, thousands of dollars per 0:12:12.960 --> 0:12:15.880 head for these wealthy, mostly men that come in. 0:12:16.720 --> 0:12:18.760 I would be really interested to be a fly on 0:12:18.800 --> 0:12:19.120 the wall. 0:12:19.920 --> 0:12:22.000 Basically, if you're good at hustling, it can be a 0:12:22.040 --> 0:12:25.560 gold mine. And like she said, you can sometimes make 0:12:25.559 --> 0:12:28.560 connections inside the club that can turn into more long 0:12:28.640 --> 0:12:32.760 term arrangements outside the club. One of the beneficiaries of 0:12:32.840 --> 0:12:37.719 Damon's particularly curated party environment was David Winkler. David's a 0:12:37.760 --> 0:12:39.880 movie producer in his fifties who he met in a 0:12:39.880 --> 0:12:43.920 previous episode. The way David first heard about Sanctum was 0:12:43.960 --> 0:12:48.040 actually through seeking arrangement. Basically, after he got divorced, he 0:12:48.120 --> 0:12:50.880 was looking to have some casual fun. His sex life 0:12:50.920 --> 0:12:54.000 up until that point had been pretty conventional, and he 0:12:54.080 --> 0:12:57.200 needed a minute to thrive as his single, sluty self, 0:12:57.320 --> 0:13:00.480 you know, and he discovered that seeking arrangement was a 0:13:00.520 --> 0:13:03.880 great way to date women without the expectation of commitment 0:13:04.800 --> 0:13:08.120 if you're interested. He actually detailed his experiences of being 0:13:08.120 --> 0:13:10.600 a sugar daddy in a book he published in twenty 0:13:10.640 --> 0:13:13.720 twenty two, aptly titled The Arrangement. 0:13:14.000 --> 0:13:16.319 Seeking Arrangement is Tender for people with money. 0:13:17.080 --> 0:13:20.440 I started out out of my marriage just paying for 0:13:20.480 --> 0:13:23.640 a night, you know whatever, six hundred and two fifteen 0:13:23.679 --> 0:13:24.960 hundred dollars for a date. 0:13:25.640 --> 0:13:26.160 We'd go to. 0:13:26.120 --> 0:13:29.200 Dinner, we'd travel together, and I felt like I was 0:13:29.200 --> 0:13:33.560 supporting their career goals and ambitions. I was never interested 0:13:33.600 --> 0:13:37.640 in it being monogamous, but I liked how honest. 0:13:37.400 --> 0:13:39.400 It was, like know what he lied, Everybody knew what 0:13:39.440 --> 0:13:40.040 we were doing. 0:13:41.040 --> 0:13:43.800 In other words, the money, which is often called an 0:13:43.840 --> 0:13:47.120 allowance on sugar sites, you know, just to really lean 0:13:47.160 --> 0:13:50.880 into that whole perverse daddy daughter thing, acts as a boundary. 0:13:51.400 --> 0:13:54.959 For David. The money kept things casual, and he liked that. Also, 0:13:55.040 --> 0:13:56.560 he felt the site was a place he could talk 0:13:56.640 --> 0:13:58.960 openly about his sexual turn ons in a way that 0:13:59.000 --> 0:14:02.280 felt new and exciting to him. His first few Sanctum 0:14:02.320 --> 0:14:04.840 parties were a ton of fun. If you remember, he 0:14:04.880 --> 0:14:06.760 told us that Sanctum made him feel like he wasn't 0:14:06.760 --> 0:14:10.079 the only purve in town. So sweet. At the beginning, 0:14:10.160 --> 0:14:12.240 he always went to the club with a date, but 0:14:12.320 --> 0:14:16.000 eventually he decided to go solo, literally single and ready 0:14:16.040 --> 0:14:18.400 to mangle, and that night turned out to be his 0:14:18.480 --> 0:14:19.080 best yet. 0:14:19.280 --> 0:14:22.720 The highlight for me was once I did go alone 0:14:23.400 --> 0:14:26.720 and I ended up hooking up with two women. I 0:14:26.800 --> 0:14:29.760 knew one of the girls well, we had spoken on 0:14:29.840 --> 0:14:33.200 seeking arrangement and had not met, and she said, you know, 0:14:33.320 --> 0:14:35.160 you want to have some fun and I said absolutely. 0:14:35.360 --> 0:14:37.640 And as we were going, she grabbed a friend and 0:14:37.680 --> 0:14:39.880 she said, you want her to join us? I thought 0:14:39.920 --> 0:14:43.280 she's beautiful. I said absolutely. She said, you know, will 0:14:43.320 --> 0:14:45.960 you take care of us? And I knew exactly what 0:14:46.040 --> 0:14:48.920 she was saying, and I said yes. You know, nobody 0:14:48.920 --> 0:14:50.960 ever comes out and says, you know, what, are you 0:14:51.000 --> 0:14:53.120 going to pay me? It's much more subtle than that, 0:14:54.320 --> 0:14:55.240 will you take. 0:14:55.080 --> 0:14:58.000 Care of us? In other words, if we all rail, 0:14:58.160 --> 0:15:01.080 you're going to venmo us later. Right, The sugar world 0:15:01.120 --> 0:15:04.280 is chock full of vague terminology like this in order 0:15:04.320 --> 0:15:07.480 to pretend you're not fucking for money, whether it's for 0:15:07.600 --> 0:15:11.120 legal reasons or to preserve someone's sense of morality or 0:15:11.120 --> 0:15:15.480 the guy's ego or whatever. As Joan Diddyon famously wrote, 0:15:15.800 --> 0:15:17.920 we tell ourselves stories in order to live. 0:15:21.600 --> 0:15:24.960 I remember having sex with these two women and seeing 0:15:25.040 --> 0:15:28.400 maybe twenty people in the room, and when it was over, 0:15:28.800 --> 0:15:32.760 they applauded. I mean, you know, I write about that 0:15:32.800 --> 0:15:36.520 in my book, literally hearing applause that I remember after 0:15:36.560 --> 0:15:40.400 I having threesome, we walked upstairs and one of the 0:15:40.440 --> 0:15:42.120 girls said, you want to get a drink? And I said, 0:15:42.160 --> 0:15:43.880 you know, no, I think I'm going to go home, 0:15:44.680 --> 0:15:46.720 and she said why, I said, well, it just doesn't 0:15:46.760 --> 0:15:49.960 get any better than this. You know, I was the 0:15:50.040 --> 0:15:52.480 king of Sanctum for five minutes. Where am I going 0:15:52.520 --> 0:15:53.120 to go from here? 0:15:54.880 --> 0:15:57.040 I had pushed my sexual boundaries. 0:15:57.480 --> 0:15:59.800 From now on, I'll be offended if my partners on 0:15:59.880 --> 0:16:02.560 a clawed me every time we have sex. Maybe I 0:16:02.560 --> 0:16:05.920 can get Damon to facilitate this for me. After hearing 0:16:05.920 --> 0:16:09.520 about David Sugar through some bonanza, I asked, did he 0:16:09.560 --> 0:16:11.560 feel like there was a lot of this quote take 0:16:11.640 --> 0:16:14.040 care of you stuff happening at Sanctum. 0:16:14.360 --> 0:16:16.520 I think the fact that they got a lot of 0:16:16.560 --> 0:16:21.720 their hostesses and performers from seeking arrangement, you know, sort 0:16:21.760 --> 0:16:25.600 of encouraged that exchange. But I think there was just 0:16:25.720 --> 0:16:29.240 always this given that you could walk up to most 0:16:29.400 --> 0:16:31.080 women there. 0:16:30.840 --> 0:16:33.120 And say, hey, are you interested in an arrangement? 0:16:33.760 --> 0:16:35.360 In other words, yes. 0:16:35.400 --> 0:16:37.800 Damon never walked up and said, hey, you know, do 0:16:37.880 --> 0:16:40.800 you want that girl? She'd costs this, and he made 0:16:40.840 --> 0:16:45.400 it feel classy. You never felt like you were purchasing sex, 0:16:45.480 --> 0:16:47.640 but you knew it was there. At one point, he 0:16:47.680 --> 0:16:52.200 had this other level of membership called like Dominus, and 0:16:52.280 --> 0:16:55.600 I think you spent fifty thousand dollars to join, and 0:16:55.600 --> 0:16:58.040 I think it was kind of a given that, you know, 0:16:58.080 --> 0:16:59.800 you'd go to the party and Damon would have a 0:16:59.800 --> 0:17:02.800 girl for you. And I'm not sure that Damon would 0:17:02.840 --> 0:17:05.560 want to talk about this, and you know, he may 0:17:05.640 --> 0:17:06.960 feel that it cheapens it. 0:17:07.800 --> 0:17:08.320 I don't. 0:17:08.520 --> 0:17:10.680 I'm pro sex work, so I don't think there's anything 0:17:10.680 --> 0:17:11.480 to be ashamed about. 0:17:11.880 --> 0:17:14.639 So I asked Damon about this, and actually he didn't 0:17:14.680 --> 0:17:16.040 shy away from talking about it. 0:17:16.840 --> 0:17:21.320 This gets into the realm of sex work morality. What's 0:17:21.320 --> 0:17:25.240 okay and what's not okay, what's consensual and not consensual. 0:17:25.880 --> 0:17:29.800 I have very clear boundaries from myself of what that is. 0:17:30.600 --> 0:17:33.199 You know, I have absolutely no judgment against anyone that 0:17:33.280 --> 0:17:37.120 wants to participate in that. At Sanctum like, the performers 0:17:37.160 --> 0:17:40.560 were definitely open to doing all kinds of things, and 0:17:40.640 --> 0:17:43.760 they would have their own personal exchanges and their own 0:17:43.800 --> 0:17:47.600 personal interactions with people. And I left that up to 0:17:47.680 --> 0:17:50.160 them to their own judgment. I didn't get girls from 0:17:50.160 --> 0:17:52.679 seeking arrangements and say you're going to have sex in 0:17:52.760 --> 0:17:55.040 my club for money. That would have brought my club 0:17:55.119 --> 0:17:57.120 down to the ground really quickly. 0:17:57.640 --> 0:18:01.600 Although sometimes Damon can get touched about what this might imply. 0:18:02.720 --> 0:18:05.560 You know, there's bullshit stories in the press about, oh, 0:18:05.640 --> 0:18:08.040 you know, most of the women there were paid. That 0:18:08.200 --> 0:18:11.240 is so fucking false. Most of the women there were 0:18:11.280 --> 0:18:13.920 not paid. Most of the women there were there because 0:18:13.960 --> 0:18:15.639 they wanted to be there, and they'd had nothing to 0:18:15.680 --> 0:18:19.000 do with money. Quite honestly, I absolutely did hire performers 0:18:19.040 --> 0:18:21.280 to have sex with each other because we did sex shows, 0:18:21.600 --> 0:18:24.280 but they were like foreign performers, and so for girls 0:18:24.280 --> 0:18:27.879 who did make extra money, who did you know whatever, 0:18:27.960 --> 0:18:30.840 sleep with a member and get money from them like 0:18:30.960 --> 0:18:33.400 that was on them. So these girls were not hired 0:18:33.440 --> 0:18:34.280 to fuck anybody. 0:18:35.080 --> 0:18:38.720 So yes, girls did get work on the side, but 0:18:38.800 --> 0:18:41.800 Damon's basically saying that was not part of their job, 0:18:41.960 --> 0:18:45.960 and I wasn't directly involved in it. However, as we'll 0:18:46.000 --> 0:18:49.320 see after the break, Sanctum wasn't completely hands off in 0:18:49.320 --> 0:19:05.320 this department. Of course, by now you know Ambrose in 0:19:05.359 --> 0:19:07.640 his three years working at the club. He recalls making 0:19:07.680 --> 0:19:10.639 a ton of money on the side, like sometimes he 0:19:10.760 --> 0:19:12.960 meet rich guys at Sanctum who'd then go on to 0:19:12.960 --> 0:19:16.880 see as escorting clients outside the club. However, he says 0:19:16.920 --> 0:19:19.199 there was also a system in place at Sanctum for 0:19:19.280 --> 0:19:23.120 facilitating this stuff in house. It feels a little weird 0:19:23.119 --> 0:19:26.200 to keep saying this, but just for clarity, Ambrose is 0:19:26.240 --> 0:19:29.200 a trans man but was still presenting as femme back 0:19:29.240 --> 0:19:32.480 when he was working at Sanctum. Anyway, here's how he says. 0:19:32.520 --> 0:19:33.840 All this stuff went down. 0:19:34.280 --> 0:19:36.320 Like around two am, sometimes one am. 0:19:36.440 --> 0:19:39.840 If we got the approval prior, we could get paid 0:19:39.880 --> 0:19:44.679 out from working the performance, or we could try to 0:19:44.720 --> 0:19:48.040 circulate the crowd and try to find someone who wants 0:19:48.080 --> 0:19:52.240 to like rent a room with you, essentially, and whatever 0:19:52.320 --> 0:19:56.680 occurs in there is between two consensual adults, but there's 0:19:56.680 --> 0:20:02.880 no promise of sexual intercourse or anything sexual happening. However, 0:20:03.040 --> 0:20:06.520 before that, Damon would always encourage us to like help 0:20:06.560 --> 0:20:10.879 them finish essentially, But then there was a person that 0:20:11.040 --> 0:20:15.040 was put in a more managerial position that would handle 0:20:15.119 --> 0:20:17.800 the transactions of those things. 0:20:17.560 --> 0:20:20.440 And according to Ambrose, the system was working for him. 0:20:20.960 --> 0:20:24.080 Sometimes if I hustled hard enough, I could get booked 0:20:24.160 --> 0:20:27.480 multiple times in a night before I went home as 0:20:27.480 --> 0:20:29.919 a devotee, so I could come away with like several 0:20:29.960 --> 0:20:33.000 thousand dollars from that night, which I sometimes did. 0:20:33.720 --> 0:20:35.480 We could do it his doubles also like do. 0:20:35.560 --> 0:20:38.560 A sessions with other performers if we wanted to, and 0:20:38.640 --> 0:20:44.320 which I prefer doing because let's work. Also if like 0:20:44.880 --> 0:20:48.119 one of you is like sitting on their face, like 0:20:48.280 --> 0:20:50.760 looking at their body kind of thing, and the other 0:20:50.800 --> 0:20:55.479 ones like riding them facing towards them, the person that 0:20:55.520 --> 0:20:58.000 you're on top of can't see shit, and then you 0:20:58.040 --> 0:21:02.600 guys can just make faces at each other, Like that's 0:21:02.640 --> 0:21:04.920 so exhausting. I can't wait for this to be over, 0:21:05.240 --> 0:21:09.680 like fake vomiting like dagny, or like signally like you 0:21:09.720 --> 0:21:11.919 want to go to the bath room together, have a 0:21:11.920 --> 0:21:17.240 little break, rest our, coot cheese, Lol. 0:21:17.600 --> 0:21:20.320 Threesomes less work and more fun. 0:21:21.359 --> 0:21:24.439 So girls would get like a grand for that, And 0:21:24.440 --> 0:21:25.760 it wasn't u ttill a little bit later on that 0:21:25.840 --> 0:21:30.960 I found out the people booking that hour they were 0:21:31.000 --> 0:21:35.240 paying the club two K. We were only getting half 0:21:35.280 --> 0:21:37.600 of that and doing all the freaking work. 0:21:38.760 --> 0:21:42.960 That's Ambrose's experience anyway, and that specific part he wasn't 0:21:43.000 --> 0:21:45.399 happy with, but he was still making enough money to 0:21:45.440 --> 0:21:48.239 make it feel worth it. According to him, at a 0:21:48.240 --> 0:21:51.440 certain point at Sanctum, it evolved past members paying to 0:21:51.440 --> 0:21:53.760 book a room for an hour or so to paying 0:21:53.840 --> 0:21:58.159 to stay overnight at the mansion with a performer. Unsurprisingly, 0:21:58.280 --> 0:22:01.280 there were never any contracts written up by Sanctum around 0:22:01.280 --> 0:22:05.240 the operation of this stuff. Everything was conducted verbally, so 0:22:05.280 --> 0:22:07.840 we are taking people's accounts at base value. 0:22:08.280 --> 0:22:10.080 I was one of the first people that got it 0:22:10.119 --> 0:22:12.439 going with like we should do overnights, and like I 0:22:12.480 --> 0:22:15.240 convinced this guy. He was like twenty one, twenty two, 0:22:16.000 --> 0:22:18.120 he's like the son of a musician. I forget who, 0:22:18.720 --> 0:22:20.600 but he had daddy's black card. 0:22:23.880 --> 0:22:25.840 On file there how much do you get paid for 0:22:25.880 --> 0:22:26.360 an overnight? 0:22:26.640 --> 0:22:29.400