Speaker 1: School of Humans. Sanctum Unmasked is about a sex club
Speaker 1: and describes various sex acts. Please use discretion where and
Speaker 1: when you listen. So as we've talked about in the past,
Speaker 1: there was a lot on offer at Sanctum. The sexual
Speaker 1: menu was, shall we say expansive. Are you interested in
Speaker 1: the foursome with two skinny white women dressed as woodland nymphs,
Speaker 1: sex with a limptic billionaire under an oil painting of
Speaker 1: an all seeing eye, or perhaps being whipped by a
Speaker 1: mass stranger with a diamond encrusted flogger that costs more
Speaker 1: than your undergrad Sanctum's got you covered, and as the
Speaker 1: overlord of this world, Damon was constantly being propositioned for
Speaker 1: more than just sex, and it could be hard to
Speaker 1: say no.
Speaker 2: I had experiences early on where someone that was heavy
Speaker 2: into BDSM ask me point blank. She was like, may
Speaker 2: you're a piss in anyone's mouth? And I was like no,
Speaker 2: And she was like do you want to? And I
Speaker 2: honestly I was like no, not really, it doesn't really
Speaker 2: interest me and yeah, and she was like, well, let
Speaker 2: me explain it to you. If this is something you
Speaker 2: would want to do, I would get down on my
Speaker 2: hands and knees, and I'd get naked first, I'd put
Speaker 2: my hands behind my back and I'd stick my tongue out.
Speaker 2: You could piss in my mouth and it would drip
Speaker 2: down out of my mouth, down my breast, down in
Speaker 2: my pussy, and you can do whatever you want after that.
Speaker 2: And I was like, Okay, let's do this. Why wouldn't
Speaker 2: I She's asked me to, she wants to, And honestly,
Speaker 2: why have I never pissed in anyone's mouth? I don't know.
Speaker 1: I'm a forty year old man. What am I doing
Speaker 1: with my life?
Speaker 2: Exactly?
Speaker 1: Welcome to Sanctum Unmasked. I'm your host, Carl Schortino.
Speaker 2: Okay, so are we ready to Are we rolling? Okay? Cool?
Speaker 2: So what's what's my first question?
Speaker 1: Starting really light today? Do you consider yourself a sex addict?
Speaker 2: Are you fucking serious? That's really where we're starting. Wow,
Speaker 2: here we go. Well, I consider myself a I guess,
Speaker 2: recovering sex addict. I undoubtedly was. I mean, I want
Speaker 2: to say rule, that's the wrong word. But sexuality had
Speaker 2: a lot of control over me, rather than me having
Speaker 2: control over my own sexuality, especially you know during the
Speaker 2: sanctum years when it was just all around me. I mean,
Speaker 2: I guess like if you're into drinking or into like,
Speaker 2: you know, drug use, it would be like you have
Speaker 2: this mansion and it's just filled without calling drugs, and
Speaker 2: you're like, this is easy. So you know, I was
Speaker 2: really in a position where it was easy for me
Speaker 2: to explore that stuff and feel like it was okay.
Speaker 1: Right. It's like having a drinking problem and then moving
Speaker 1: into a giant free bar where the liquor bottles sleep
Speaker 1: in bed with you in slutty lingerie and beg you
Speaker 1: to drink them. Doesn't sound easy. Oh and by the way,
Speaker 1: I don't think engaging in piss play necessarily makes you
Speaker 1: a sex addict. We just thought that peace story was
Speaker 1: funny and wanted to get it in before the end
Speaker 1: of the podcast. Anyway, back in our first episode, we
Speaker 1: pose the question what happens when you shed societal expectations
Speaker 1: and just unapologetically pursue personal sexual freedom? But a kind
Speaker 1: of necessary part two to that question is where is
Speaker 1: the line between sexual freedom and sexual compulsion? What is
Speaker 1: engaging in healthy exploration of your erotic self in the world,
Speaker 1: and what's just being a full on sex Maniac from Help. Honestly,
Speaker 1: it's a question that I've asked myself many times over
Speaker 1: the course of my adult life, and the answer isn't
Speaker 1: always so clear. When we left you last, it was
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen and Daemon was hitting his breaking point with Sanctum.
Speaker 1: The logistics of running a sex club at that level
Speaker 1: had become overwhelming, particularly navigating the messy world of sex work, morality,
Speaker 1: and consent amid a cyclone of money and ego. But
Speaker 1: Demon was also doing some reflection about how the culture
Speaker 1: of Sanctum was impacting his personal relationship to sex and
Speaker 1: to alcohol. He was drinking too much, increasingly as a
Speaker 1: form of escape, and being so immersed in a world
Speaker 1: where sex wasn't just constantly available but also a currency,
Speaker 1: was starting to feel toxic. This space of so called
Speaker 1: sexual freedom had now become a prison of his own desires,
Speaker 1: and it didn't help that his life was basically well this.
Speaker 2: A constant stream of videos, photos, DMS, messages showing up
Speaker 2: at my mind doorstep, showing up at my parties like
Speaker 2: just straight up, Hi, my friend and I really want
Speaker 2: to fuck you? Will you fuck us? Like that?
Speaker 1: It's a lot whether the girls were genuinely attracted to him,
Speaker 1: or they just wanted to brag to their friends that
Speaker 1: they fucked the founder of Sanctum, or they were just
Speaker 1: trying to get an invite to the party. It just
Speaker 1: sounds exhausting to be that fuckable.
Speaker 2: It felt fucking amazing. It mitigated the fact that I
Speaker 2: was not with my favorite person in the world. It
Speaker 2: mitigated the fact that I left Melissa and my children
Speaker 2: to pursue this thing. You know, it was my drug.
Speaker 2: I was like a crack addict. I mean I got
Speaker 2: so high off of it all. But then you know,
Speaker 2: just like if you smoke crack, it feels real good
Speaker 2: when you're high on it, but then you come down
Speaker 2: from it and you're like, oh, I'm such a fucking
Speaker 2: piece of shit, Like, what the fuck is wrong with me?
Speaker 2: I'm disgusting, Like what am I doing? And you can't
Speaker 2: get enough of it.
Speaker 1: Of course, Melissa was watching this all play out, and
Speaker 1: she was genuinely worried for him.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he has an issue. He definitely needed to work
Speaker 3: on himself with his sex addiction situation. How he came
Speaker 3: to even like know that there was a sex addiction
Speaker 3: problem was because when we were separated. He was living
Speaker 3: at the Sincton mansion. I mean, Damon told me this himself,
Speaker 3: that he had sex with like one hundred and eighty women,
Speaker 3: And this isn't a span of a year, so you
Speaker 3: do the math, Like that's a lot. I remember sitting
Speaker 3: in the car in front of his house and he's
Speaker 3: telling me this, and I'm like, are you like really?
Speaker 3: And also the emotion what lies beneath all of that,
Speaker 3: Like why are you seeking out that many women? Why
Speaker 3: do you need this much validation and continuous attention? It
Speaker 3: was like an addict needing a drug, and his was
Speaker 3: women and the attention he got from them.
Speaker 1: Now, this is pretty relatable, probably not the one hundred
Speaker 1: and eighty women part, but the part about sex being validating.
Speaker 1: So many of us have felt at times that our worth,
Speaker 1: at least in part, is caught up in our attractiveness,
Speaker 1: our sex appeal, our datability. I mean, I've certainly looked
Speaker 1: to sex or just attention in general to regulate my emotions.
Speaker 1: On more than one occasion, it's like I feel bad
Speaker 1: about myself, I'm going to have sex with someone to
Speaker 1: boost my ego, or I feel insecure in my relationships,
Speaker 1: so I'm going to cheat to make myself feel less vulnerable.
Speaker 1: It's certainly not great, but it's unfortunately human.
Speaker 2: I felt important and I felt loved, and I felt
Speaker 2: less empty when someone was coming at me and telling
Speaker 2: me that they want to fuck me, or telling me
Speaker 2: how handsome I am, or orgasming underneath me, you know,
Speaker 2: like that made me feel good. That was one of
Speaker 2: the only things that made me feel special or worthwhile.
Speaker 1: And Damon's specific background, being a survivor of child sex abuse,
Speaker 1: only exasperated this issue.
Speaker 2: Sexuality and my identity were so wrapped up together from
Speaker 2: the time, you know, I was a little kid, from
Speaker 2: the time I was six years old and I discovered
Speaker 2: way too young what sex was, you know, And then
Speaker 2: when I was sixteen seventeen and I was starting to
Speaker 2: do modeling and commercials and getting so much praise for
Speaker 2: the way I look. It's like all of the praise
Speaker 2: was like external, and a lot of it came from women.
Speaker 2: I remember when I was younger, just like, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm sixteen or something and I go over to my
Speaker 2: girlfriend's house and their mom would meet me, and their
Speaker 2: mom would be like, you know, oh, he's a keeper.
Speaker 2: You know, he's so cute, and the mom's looking at me,
Speaker 2: you know, wanting to eat me alive. And I loved it.
Speaker 2: It was like, oh, wow, I'm really special.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I can see now with hindsight that these women wanted
Speaker 2: a piece in me, not so much for me, but
Speaker 2: for them. I was the feather in their cap.
Speaker 1: The experience of being objectified is something we often think
Speaker 1: of as a more traditionally female experience. It's more rare
Speaker 1: that we see this, or at least talk about this
Speaker 1: from a male perspective, and it's interesting. Objectification is complicated
Speaker 1: because it can feel good to be desired in that way,
Speaker 1: and yet when people don't see you as a whole person,
Speaker 1: especially in your formative years, that can have lasting negative effects.
Speaker 4: I think it's well publicized that there's sort of this
Speaker 4: pretty girl syndrome, but I think it's less well publicized
Speaker 4: that there's pretty boy syndrome. In the same way.
Speaker 1: That's our pal journalist Mike Seger.
Speaker 4: It's a little bit of a handicap to be so
Speaker 4: pretty because people just come to you, so you don't
Speaker 4: develop skills of how to deal with people as well,
Speaker 4: and then people are like curious to you you're not
Speaker 4: quite sure how they work, because like the rest of us,
Speaker 4: have to like give people what they need in order
Speaker 4: to get what we want.
Speaker 1: In other words, being really hot can inhibit your ability
Speaker 1: to develop certain social skills. It can make you a
Speaker 1: bit of an idiot. No offense, as much.
Speaker 2: As I wanted to escape into this world of my addictions,
Speaker 2: and that's what Sanctum was above all, was a world
Speaker 2: where I could fully engage in sex, drugs, and rock
Speaker 2: and roll more like house music, where I could fully
Speaker 2: engage in all of that and not only like revel
Speaker 2: in it, but sort of be put on a pedestal
Speaker 2: for it. For an alcoholic and a sex addict, being
Speaker 2: the king of Sanctum was like the ultimate position. At
Speaker 2: some point, living that way got to meet.
Speaker 1: We throw around the term sex addict a lot these days.
Speaker 1: This idea of a dark, overwhelming sexuality has become a
Speaker 1: hot topic in mainstream culture. Hollywood has been increasingly broaching
Speaker 1: the subject, For instance, Steve McQueen's critically acclaimed film Shame.
Speaker 1: There's also twenty fifteen's Sleeping with Other People, which funnily enough,
Speaker 1: is a sex addiction rom com starring Ted Lasso. They
Speaker 1: also recently dealt with the topic on season two of
Speaker 1: The White Lotus, in which Michael Imperioli's character struggles with
Speaker 1: sexual compulsion. And there's one of my favorite films of
Speaker 1: all time, Lauras Bontrier's Nymphomaniac. If you like this podcast,
Speaker 1: I really insist you watch. And then there's the various
Speaker 1: celebrities checking into sex rehabs, both on and off VH one,
Speaker 1: like David Duchovny Russell Brand, Tiger Woods, etc. Sex addiction
Speaker 1: it's the new trendiest problem. But what does it mean
Speaker 1: to be a sex addict? What does that look like?
Speaker 1: And can you actually be addicted to sex in the
Speaker 1: way you can be with drugs or alcohol? Well, according
Speaker 1: to the DSM, you can't. You might be familiar with
Speaker 1: the DA if not, it's essentially the Bible of Mental
Speaker 1: Health Disorders, used by health professionals in the United States
Speaker 1: as an authoritative guide to the diagnosis of mental disorders.
Speaker 1: It's periodically updated by the American Psychiatric Association, and for
Speaker 1: years people have been arguing about whether sex addiction or
Speaker 1: some type of hypersexuality disorder should be included, but it's
Speaker 1: nowhere to be found in the most current version. However,
Speaker 1: the ICD AKA the International Classification of Diseases, which is
Speaker 1: the rest of the world's equivalent to the DSM, recently
Speaker 1: did include compulsive sexual behavior disorder. In other words, sex
Speaker 1: addiction is a polarizing topic. Additionally, the idea of sex
Speaker 1: addiction can be considered problematic because it has been used
Speaker 1: to pathologize gay men or to moralize about the use
Speaker 1: of pornography, or I'm a sex addict can be offered
Speaker 1: as a cop out for not so great sexual behavior.
Speaker 1: According to doctor genre Rangalova, the reason we're so divided
Speaker 1: on this issue is because we don't understand the problem,
Speaker 1: in part because there's so much stigma around sex. Remember
Speaker 1: doctor Jhanna is a sex researcher and the Human Sexuality
Speaker 1: Professor at NYU.
Speaker 5: The whole concept of sex addiction is so fraught.
Speaker 6: My take on that is that there is no doubt
Speaker 6: some people are having sex in ways that are self
Speaker 6: destructive and other destructive.
Speaker 5: The difficulty in distinguishing what is what.
Speaker 6: Is that we live in a world that pathologizes the
Speaker 6: high end of the sex drive and sexual novelty seeking
Speaker 6: spectrum by default that in and of itself, you know
Speaker 6: wanting to have sex every day, or wanting to have
Speaker 6: sex with multiple people in a lot of these different, new,
Speaker 6: kind of crazy, wild environments, that in and of itself
Speaker 6: is not a problem.
Speaker 5: There's nothing pathological about.
Speaker 1: That, right, Having a high sex doesn't inherently mean you're
Speaker 1: mentally ill. It feels important to note that.
Speaker 6: And yet, because we live in a culture that pathologizes
Speaker 6: that end of the spectrum, no matter what, it doesn't
Speaker 6: give you a healthy way of doing it.
Speaker 5: All of that lack of proper information training.
Speaker 6: Tools makes them end up doing it in these destructive
Speaker 6: ways and excessive ways.
Speaker 1: Essentially, if you want to have a lot of sex
Speaker 1: with different people, you're a slut with a problem, you know,
Speaker 1: according to society, And because so many people think this way,
Speaker 1: if you are one of these slutty people, chances are
Speaker 1: that your friends or family or even your partner are
Speaker 1: expressing concern about you or treating you like you're a
Speaker 1: bad person, and then, unsurprisingly, you're left feeling guilt and
Speaker 1: shame about your desires. So basically, the question is how
Speaker 1: much of the shame or negativity we feel associated with
Speaker 1: sex is inherently ours and how much of it is
Speaker 1: a social construct well, it's often difficult to know. And
Speaker 1: like we talked about in a previous episode, what happens
Speaker 1: when your sexual desires are suppressed for a long time,
Speaker 1: but then you open the floodgates, as Damon experienced, you
Speaker 1: can kind of go berserk. And according to doctor Jhanna,
Speaker 1: that's actually not all that surprising.
Speaker 5: The excessiveness itself can be a product of the repression.
Speaker 6: It's like a kid in a candy store. And if
Speaker 6: you keep a kid away from the candy store forever,
Speaker 6: they walk by and they see it, like, oh my god,
Speaker 6: I want some.
Speaker 5: No, you can't have it. It, can't have it, can't
Speaker 5: have it. And then once you let them in, they're
Speaker 5: going to eat every single candy in the store. It's
Speaker 5: just human nature, you know.
Speaker 6: Just look at binge drinking prevent people from doing it
Speaker 6: for a very long period of time, an unreasonable period
Speaker 6: of time if you ask the Europeans, and then when
Speaker 6: you let them drink, yeah, they're going to drink themselves
Speaker 6: to death.
Speaker 1: When talking to Damon about the fragmented you of the
Speaker 1: validity of sex addiction, he had a very strong opinion.
Speaker 2: I don't care how it's recognized. Sexuality is something that
Speaker 2: can be highly addictive. To think that there is no
Speaker 2: sexual compulsion or that it couldn't be an addiction, I
Speaker 2: think that's ridiculous because, well, just from my own experience
Speaker 2: feeling like it was a compulsion at times, and comparing
Speaker 2: that to my addiction or compulsion to alcohol, they are
Speaker 2: exactly the same. And the relief I would get from
Speaker 2: taking a drink or the relief I would get from
Speaker 2: having sex are so similar. When I would take a drink,
Speaker 2: I would feel better about myself. I'd feel like, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm a little bit more handsome, I'm a little bit
Speaker 2: more special, I'm a little bit more whatever. The same
Speaker 2: thing would happen with me with sexuality. I would get
Speaker 2: that same feeling, that same like ego up boost or whatever.
Speaker 2: They're so similar to me. It would be terrible if
Speaker 2: there's a stigma on it, like, oh, no, you're not
Speaker 2: a sex addict, You're just a fucked up person. I mean,
Speaker 2: maybe that's true, but imagine saying that to an alcoholic.
Speaker 2: You know, you're not an alcoholic, you just can't stop drinking.
Speaker 2: You're a fucking asshole. That's the wrong way of looking
Speaker 2: at it.
Speaker 1: I think that makes sense, and like with drinking, if
Speaker 1: you have one too many drinks, you might become a
Speaker 1: little reckless, less aware of or sensitive to what is
Speaker 1: healthy boundary behavior and what's crossing a line, and sexual
Speaker 1: compulsion can be the source of a similar type of recklessness.
Speaker 1: It's what doctor Jhanna was just saying. Whether you believe
Speaker 1: in sex addiction or not, there are definitely people who
Speaker 1: are having sex and ways that are self destructive and
Speaker 1: other destructive. Damon personally contends that he's never overstepped anyone's boundaries.
Speaker 2: I know in my heart and soul that I was
Speaker 2: never abusive towards anybody. I never tried to get anyone
Speaker 2: to do anything they didn't want to do. I never, like,
Speaker 2: I just didn't do that. I didn't cross any lines.
Speaker 2: I mean I felt very desired, you know, if someone
Speaker 2: was to have sex with me because they wanted something
Speaker 2: from me. I mean, that's not really on me. Everything
Speaker 2: I ever did was done with consent and as much
Speaker 2: like love and sense quality as I could muster, you know.
Speaker 2: And some of it wasn't. I mean, some of it
Speaker 2: was just like crazy fucking you know. But as far
Speaker 2: as I knew, as far as I was aware of.
Speaker 2: That's what we were all there for.
Speaker 1: Of course, our experiences of sex are subjective. Something that's
Speaker 1: fun for one person might be kind of off putting
Speaker 1: or even scary for another person. We'd be remiss not
Speaker 1: to mention that in reporting this podcast, some people didn't
Speaker 1: speak very highly of Damon. Some said that he made
Speaker 1: them feel uncomfortable or they didn't want to be associated
Speaker 1: with him on this show. They have their reasons for that,
Speaker 1: and I'll know they didn't want to go on record
Speaker 1: to explain those reasons anyway. For Damon, once he was
Speaker 1: able to admit to himself that he had a sex
Speaker 1: addiction problem, he tried to get some help and so.
Speaker 3: He started to dive into therapy and I think he
Speaker 3: was going to go away to this clinic for men.
Speaker 3: The guy that ran this clinic is like in this
Speaker 3: other state. He got on the phone with Demon and
Speaker 3: Damon was telling him about his you know, what was
Speaker 3: going on with him. And then the guy was like, wait, wait,
Speaker 3: you're Demon from Sanctum. No, we can't take you denied
Speaker 3: going to a goddamn like clinic to like heal because
Speaker 3: this guy already had these other men and he was
Speaker 3: like if you bring this dude in, he might trigger
Speaker 3: all of these other guys to relapse because of the
Speaker 3: sex club, because of just the access to all of
Speaker 3: these women and all of this, like it was just
Speaker 3: too easy. So he was denied that access to go
Speaker 3: to that place.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's definitely sad, but also objectively kind of funny.
Speaker 1: Now Demon wasn't the only one going through a transition.
Speaker 1: There was also a major shakeup happening at Sanctum More
Speaker 1: gossip after the break. Now, Damon's internal reckoning was happening
Speaker 1: as he was being kicked out of the Sanctum mansion.
Speaker 1: If you remember when Damon signed the lease on the
Speaker 1: mansion in twenty sixteen, the reason he got such a
Speaker 1: good deal on the rent was because the house was
Speaker 1: said to be demolished, and the owner let Damon move
Speaker 1: in while he waited on permits. And thirteen months later
Speaker 1: the permits came and soon Damon would have to pack
Speaker 1: his things and get out, and that meant he'd also
Speaker 1: have to go back to finding a different rental mansion
Speaker 1: every month to host the party, which was a ton
Speaker 1: of work and clearly not ideal. This transition marked the
Speaker 1: end of an era for sanctum and for Damon, but
Speaker 1: he took it as an opportunity to pursue a different priority.
Speaker 1: While preparing to leave the mansion, he had formulated a
Speaker 1: plan to get Melissa back.
Speaker 2: I was really intent on putting my family back together
Speaker 2: and trying to go back to my life as it
Speaker 2: had been before. It wasn't so much like, oh, I'm
Speaker 2: like bored of having sex with beautiful women now. It
Speaker 2: wasn't that, but there was certainly a feeling in me
Speaker 2: that having my wife back was more important to me
Speaker 2: than having sex with lots of people. I spent twenty
Speaker 2: years with the love of my life. I have two
Speaker 2: kids that there's nothing on the planet that I care about.
Speaker 2: I love more than them. I just wanted it back.
Speaker 2: I was willing to give up this dream, because when
Speaker 2: I walked into the dream, I was willing to give
Speaker 2: them up. That's fucking horrible to say, but I have
Speaker 2: to cop to it. I was willing to give them up.
Speaker 1: And it's kind of obvious to Melissa at least why
Speaker 1: her absence really made Damon reevaluate things.
Speaker 3: I was the matriarch, I was the mother, so to speak,
Speaker 3: in a way like I was holding down the house
Speaker 3: and how it functioned, and I made our life move
Speaker 3: and flow and work all the thousand invisible domestic fucking
Speaker 3: things that a woman does that no one sees. I
Speaker 3: think Damon and his childhood being so messed up and
Speaker 3: not having a great mother, he did not have great
Speaker 3: modeling for parents at all, and so when I provided
Speaker 3: that for him and then it was gone, I think
Speaker 3: that it brought him back to his childhood and that
Speaker 3: was very scary. It's very scary for him. You know,
Speaker 3: he started as spiral as well, and he got into
Speaker 3: a really dark place and you know, would call me
Speaker 3: and be so sad or on the floor crying, and
Speaker 3: I'm like, you know, I I'm not going to do this.
Speaker 1: Remember by this point, Melissa was dating her old neighbor Billy,
Speaker 1: but Damon would not be deterred. He insisted, look, I've changed,
Speaker 1: I'm not that guy anymore. And apparently he was pretty convincing.
Speaker 3: And so I broke up with Billy, devastated him, got
Speaker 3: back together with Damon, moved into the Saincton Mansion with
Speaker 3: the girls, and started to live like this domestic.
Speaker 1: Life there at that house.
Speaker 3: I'm like a fucking crazy n I don't know what
Speaker 3: I was doing, but I guess I would have done
Speaker 3: anything to keep my family together, literally anything. So I
Speaker 3: moved back in and then he's in the shower and
Speaker 3: again the phone is on the nightstand and I see
Speaker 3: all these fucking texts coming in and he's texting these girls,
Speaker 3: and I lost it. I fucking lost it. I opened
Speaker 3: the shower door. I'm like, what the fuck, and I
Speaker 3: freak out and I show him the phone and he's
Speaker 3: like so sorry and so apologetic and like he's standing
Speaker 3: there naked and wet, and I'm like, I'm then I'm out.
Speaker 1: I guess old habits die hard. And for Melissa, that
Speaker 1: was the final straw.
Speaker 3: Now I can't hold your hands anymore. Like it's time
Speaker 3: to grow up and it's time to figure it out
Speaker 3: and do the work, and leaving that is actually the
Speaker 3: greatest gift you could give that person. Otherwise you're enabling
Speaker 3: and they're never going to grow and learn, and neither
Speaker 3: are you, for that matter. Like, I was really out
Speaker 3: and it was really done, and I never revisited that again.
Speaker 1: I'm sure many of us have been in a situation
Speaker 1: like this. You go back to an X and you're
Speaker 1: like it's going to be different this time. You're in
Speaker 1: the honeymoon phase again and you're having great sex, and
Speaker 1: then the old problems reappear, and suddenly you're hit over
Speaker 1: the fucking head with all the reasons you left in
Speaker 1: the first place. It's like a microcosm of your entire relationship.
Speaker 1: But sometimes going back is what provides the clarity you
Speaker 1: needed about why this really truly no, actually, this time
Speaker 1: it's over. For Damon.
Speaker 2: This was a real wake up call. I was always
Speaker 2: conflicted with the reality that I was giving up my
Speaker 2: family for this, And once I realized that I could
Speaker 2: not have my cake and eat it too, I let
Speaker 2: go of sanctum. I stopped drinking the kool aid. I
Speaker 2: was looking around, and I was kind of like, you know, hmm,
Speaker 2: what are we doing exactly? Is it the kind of
Speaker 2: spiritualized eroticism that I was seeking and made this thing
Speaker 2: so special? Or is it just money and young girls
Speaker 2: and sex and rich guys and just a bunch of
Speaker 2: fucking bullshit. At this point, and at some point I
Speaker 2: had to admit that that's what it was. For me,
Speaker 2: it was official.
Speaker 1: It was time to leave the party.
Speaker 2: At one point, you asked me like, would you let
Speaker 2: your daughters go to Sanctum? And I think my immediate
Speaker 2: gut reaction was fuck no. And that says a lot
Speaker 2: to me too, because you know, these girls that were
Speaker 2: working for me were probably you know, in their twenties
Speaker 2: and there were kids. As a father, I would never
Speaker 2: subject my own kids to that experience. I just would never.
Speaker 1: Mike Sager definitely noticed a duality in Damon.
Speaker 4: He was providing a service for people, There's no doubt
Speaker 4: about that. At the same time, he was conflicted about
Speaker 4: the service he was providing, and at the same time
Speaker 4: he wanted to be loved. It's almost like he's got
Speaker 4: this sort of sensitivity that he's pulled toward, like certain
Speaker 4: universal truths, and then he like goes too far into
Speaker 4: the volcano and he's got to come back out, and
Speaker 4: he's creating torture for himself. So it's like he's constantly
Speaker 4: in opposition with good Damon and bad Damon.
Speaker 1: Or Damon versus Demon as Damon himself sometimes refers to
Speaker 1: this unfortunate reality.
Speaker 2: Just money and power and ego, and I was just
Speaker 2: in it. Nothing was enough. It was like the crazier
Speaker 2: I got, the more everyone in the mental institution was
Speaker 2: just like, you know, cheering me on, like we're all
Speaker 2: in this asylum together, and it was like, yeah, get
Speaker 2: fucking crazier. You know, you're you're you're the cult leader.
Speaker 2: You know, whatever you do, we're gonna do. But around
Speaker 2: twenty seventeen, I started to emotionally detach and it's time
Speaker 2: for me to get the fuck out of the asylum.
Speaker 1: Now that the veil had lifted for Damon, he had
Speaker 1: a new mission. He had to get the club to
Speaker 1: a place where he could sell it for what he
Speaker 1: thought it was worth, at least seven figures, but there
Speaker 1: was some work he had to do to get it
Speaker 1: to that place.
Speaker 2: The next year of my life was how do I
Speaker 2: separate Damon from Sanctum. How do I make Sanctum someone
Speaker 2: that someone could buy? Because Sanctum was Damon. People came
Speaker 2: to the events to see Damon, you know, they came
Speaker 2: to the events to, like well, to party and have sex.
Speaker 2: But like, I was like that guy, and that took
Speaker 2: me over a year to just sort of get things
Speaker 2: in play so that this was not about me anymore.
Speaker 1: So we mentioned previously that a couple of years into
Speaker 1: doing the club back in twenty fifteen, Demon started doing
Speaker 1: occasional Sanctum parties in New York, but over time it
Speaker 1: started to expand even further. Over the years, they did
Speaker 1: one off events in places like Miami and Kiev randomly,
Speaker 1: and after leaving the Mansion, Demon was asked to come
Speaker 1: through a party in Moscow and he jumped at the offer,
Speaker 1: feeling like it could increase the value of the brand.
Speaker 2: Moscow came along, and that was this incredible opportunity to
Speaker 2: do something I never dreamed I would ever do. They
Speaker 2: were the best parties that Sanctum ever did. The guy
Speaker 2: who was kind of funding the whole thing, there was
Speaker 2: no price tag. He didn't care what he spent. He
Speaker 2: was like an older groc He didn't give a fuck.
Speaker 2: So you know, we could spend whatever we wanted to spend.
Speaker 2: I don't know what's going on over there on Russia,
Speaker 2: but you know, you've got these like beautiful men and
Speaker 2: beautiful women, and you fill a room with them and
Speaker 2: give them this night of freedom, which they really took
Speaker 2: to heart and they really appreciate it more so than
Speaker 2: in the United States.
Speaker 1: Damon did six parties in Moscow over roughly the next
Speaker 1: year and a half, and around that same time came
Speaker 1: another opportunity. He was offered to be the subject of
Speaker 1: a docu series for Showtime that centered around his life
Speaker 1: and the club. Again, he was like, well, this seems
Speaker 1: like it will be good for the brand, so he
Speaker 1: went with it. The show, which aired for one season,
Speaker 1: was called Naked Sanctum. While it was pitched to Damon
Speaker 1: as being more documentary, the result leaned far more reality show.
Speaker 1: I only made it through like seventy five percent of
Speaker 1: an episode, but our producer Ata Lee's watched the whole
Speaker 1: thing and says, never again. It's kind of like The Hills,
Speaker 1: but the sex club version. It's very staged, lots of
Speaker 1: people who aren't actors trying to act like themselves and failing,
Speaker 1: plus an ungodly amount of red lighting. It's basically the
Speaker 1: opposite of this podcast, which is obviously very deep and
Speaker 1: meaningful and hysterically funny. When you bring up Naked Sanctum
Speaker 1: with Damon Now he gets triggered.
Speaker 2: It was all fake and bullshit and set up. The
Speaker 2: television show created this sort of like false reality of
Speaker 2: what Sanctum was. There was nothing real about it that
Speaker 2: was not like the legacy of Sanctum that I wanted
Speaker 2: to have.
Speaker 3: When he decided to sign on and do the Naked
Speaker 3: Sanctum reality show for Showtime, I freaked the fuck out.
Speaker 2: I was like, no, do not do this.
Speaker 3: It's going to ruin the family. It's going to ruin everything.
Speaker 3: We're already divorced. I have these two girls, and I
Speaker 3: have to always keep the best interest in alignment, and
Speaker 3: Damon is a part of that. So like, that's just
Speaker 3: a visual that now the entire world will be able
Speaker 3: to see. And I just forecasted a horrible future and
Speaker 3: just like a lot of like more bullshit to deal.
Speaker 2: With with people and my kids.
Speaker 3: I didn't want me or him or Mike children to
Speaker 3: live under that institution.
Speaker 4: And she was right.
Speaker 1: In fact, the effects of the show were even worse
Speaker 1: than she feared.
Speaker 3: Olivia was in sixth grade and was getting teased at school.
Speaker 3: She was also getting DMed on social media by submissives
Speaker 3: that had been fired from Sanctum who were disgruntled and angry.
Speaker 3: And this one girl wrote her Olivia sixth grade, what
Speaker 3: a piece of shit her dad is and all of
Speaker 3: the things that happened to her at the nightclub, and
Speaker 3: Damon is responsible to a little girl, and at that
Speaker 3: point we were going to fucking sue everyone on the planet.
Speaker 3: I was freaking out and pulled Olivia out of school
Speaker 3: because she was having social anxiety, like she couldn't even
Speaker 3: go to class anymore. My homeschooled for the rest of
Speaker 3: that year. I mean, you fuck with people's kids, and
Speaker 3: it's like war.
Speaker 2: I had my children, and I knew that what I
Speaker 2: was doing was affecting them negatively. The poster guy for
Speaker 2: the sex club. My oldest was about to enter high school,
Speaker 2: so I made her a promise, and I said, listen,
Speaker 2: when you enter high school, I will have sold Sanctum.
Speaker 2: It'll be announced in the press, and you know, it'll
Speaker 2: be behind us. If your friends, your friend's parents, you know,
Speaker 2: doesn't your dad run like a sex club. You can
Speaker 2: say he sold it. He's out of it. He doesn't
Speaker 2: do that anymore. So I would say that that was
Speaker 2: probably the biggest factor for me to sell Sanctum.
Speaker 1: So, like we said, DEMON spent a long time setting
Speaker 1: up the club to be something worth buying, but when
Speaker 1: it came time to pull the trigger, it wasn't that simple.
Speaker 1: For multiple reasons.
Speaker 2: When I went to start to field offers or the
Speaker 2: idea of a sale of Sanctum. It was really hard.
Speaker 2: You know, this is not it didn't have a brick
Speaker 2: and mortar location because if we would do it in homes,
Speaker 2: it wasn't a commercial establishment. So what you were buying
Speaker 2: when you were buying Sanctum was you know, a website,
Speaker 2: a name, a contact list, and sort of a good idea.
Speaker 2: You know, that's what you were buying. And then in
Speaker 2: addition to that, you were then faced with, if you
Speaker 2: were a legitimate businessman, you were faced with like, wow,
Speaker 2: this is risky, you know, like something could go wrong here.
Speaker 2: What if someone gets raped? What if someone says I
Speaker 2: was sexually harassed? Try getting insurance for a sex club.
Speaker 1: And then there was the issue that there's just a
Speaker 1: lot of stigma around sex in general on this hellish
Speaker 1: earth that we're living on. Despite Sanctum pulling in millions
Speaker 1: of dollars a year, the logistics of managing the financial
Speaker 1: component of a sex club could be super annoying and
Speaker 1: therefore unsurprisingly not so appealing to buyers.
Speaker 2: And then trying to find someone to run credit cards
Speaker 2: for me, traditional banks won't do it. It was really complicated.
Speaker 2: I first ran Sanctum using PayPal. I had over thirty
Speaker 2: thousand dollars in PayPal to do my next party, and
Speaker 2: I was not doing anything wrong in any way. But
Speaker 2: we were running a sex club, and so someone at
Speaker 2: PayPal I guess at some point looked on the website
Speaker 2: and they wrote me a letter and they said, we've
Speaker 2: rosen your funds. There's no recourse at all.
Speaker 1: This is truly fucked and something that is actually pretty
Speaker 1: common if you're someone who works in any facet of
Speaker 1: the sex industry. Financial institutions like Venmo or PayPal can
Speaker 1: and do just randomly shot people's accounts without warning or
Speaker 1: due process, to the point that the ACLU has actually
Speaker 1: gotten involved, saying that PayPal and Venmo targeting and freezing
Speaker 1: sex workers accounts is a civil rights issue. Sorry, that's
Speaker 1: a bit of a tangent, but I just think it's
Speaker 1: worth pointing out how much of a puritanical Big Brother
Speaker 1: nightmare that is. But anyway, eventually Demon did get an
Speaker 1: offer to buy the club that he couldn't refuse. He
Speaker 1: won't disclose what exactly the number was, but it was
Speaker 1: reported as being at least seven figures. After more than
Speaker 1: six years of running, Sanctum. He officially gave over the reins,
Speaker 1: and just to complete the ridiculousness of this whole thing,
Speaker 1: Sanctum was purchased by an anonymous inv group the we
Speaker 1: refers to itself as the Circle, obviously.
Speaker 3: So he comes over to my house, he sit at
Speaker 3: my table and he tells me he's going to sell Sanctum,
Speaker 3: and I one part of myself was like relieved, and
Speaker 3: I was so happy for him that he could get
Speaker 3: out of this thing that I knew kept pulling him
Speaker 3: into this dark place and it wasn't healthy for him.
Speaker 3: On the other hand, I was like, Okay, so my
Speaker 3: support payments are probably going to go down, you know,
Speaker 3: like I'm dependent on alimony and child support on a
Speaker 3: lot of levels at that point. And I was like, shit,
Speaker 3: so that's going to mean I've got up my game
Speaker 3: and I've got to figure out, like what am I
Speaker 3: going to do to support myself and the girls. All
Speaker 3: in all, it come back to our kids, like I
Speaker 3: want them to have a healthy, functioning, stable, secure father
Speaker 3: that is modeling a good male figure for them, because
Speaker 3: now that they're teenagers, they're gonna go find a dude
Speaker 3: that's like their dad, Like that's what we do. We
Speaker 3: seek out what we saw and were modeled when we
Speaker 3: were young. And I'm like, damn it, I don't want
Speaker 3: them to really do that. Like I love him on
Speaker 3: so many levels, but then his dark shadow site is
Speaker 3: also so large and glaring at times.
Speaker 1: I mean, she has a point. Anyway, Damon agrees to
Speaker 1: sell Sanctum to this ominous sounding investment group, and I'm
Speaker 1: going to kill him for telling me this part of
Speaker 1: the story when the mics weren't on But according to Damon,
Speaker 1: the circle said they would only pay in cash, so
Speaker 1: in order to get the money, he had to charter
Speaker 1: a private jet to New York in order to fly
Speaker 1: the two suitcases full of cash back to LA. Somehow,
Speaker 1: this feels like an appropriate end to his Sanctum journey,
Speaker 1: like even the way he sold the place was on
Speaker 1: brand for him. And it's also interesting to note the
Speaker 1: Demon sold Sanctum in August of twenty nineteen. Six months later,
Speaker 1: COVID hit and the club was shot down throughout the
Speaker 1: height of the pandemic. Yet again, Damon's dumb luck served
Speaker 1: him well. After letting go of the club, Damon did
Speaker 1: end up getting help with the issues he was struggling
Speaker 1: with and this time he stuck with it.
Speaker 3: He saw a therapist, started to walk that path of
Speaker 3: healing from what was a sex addiction. It's kind of
Speaker 3: how we have been able to stay amicable and stay
Speaker 3: friends now is because I was able to see his pain,
Speaker 3: and I know his childhood and I know how he
Speaker 3: was raised, and I know what's in him, and so
Speaker 3: I was able to see that that's his darkness, that's
Speaker 3: his shadow self, and I could compartmentalize and I could
Speaker 3: remove that from the person that I know and love
Speaker 3: and as the father of my children. It's about being enough,
Speaker 3: you know, for anything.
Speaker 1: If you're an.
Speaker 3: Alcoholic, a drug addic, a sex add a chopoholic, whatever
Speaker 3: it is, it's like you're filling a void inside yourself
Speaker 3: with this outside stuff. But really it's like you have
Speaker 3: to work on yourself with are you enough? And then
Speaker 3: fill your own cup with your own you know, love
Speaker 3: and spirituality, whatever it is. And so I think he's
Speaker 3: doing that now.
Speaker 1: Ugh, I feel like you're enough? Is hard? You know,
Speaker 1: I got it. What came next for Damon and his
Speaker 1: suitcases full of cash was embarking on a period of
Speaker 1: sobriety celibacy and single them. I don't know about you,
Speaker 1: but I certainly couldn't have predicted that.
Speaker 2: It took years from me to sort of come down
Speaker 2: off the Sanctum high and separate myself from Sanctum. You know,
Speaker 2: I don't get literally hundreds of messages coming in on
Speaker 2: an almost daily basis from women who want to fuck me.
Speaker 1: So I asked, Damon, what does it feel like to
Speaker 1: not have that? Now?
Speaker 2: Fantastic? That was like a drug for me. So, you know,
Speaker 2: how does it feel for me to not be getting drunk?
Speaker 2: I guess I miss it a little bit, but I
Speaker 2: love the clarity. I love that I know I'm a
Speaker 2: stand up person now I'm I mean, not drinking and
Speaker 2: having dealt with the sex addiction. It's completely changed who
Speaker 2: I am. So I guess I like myself a lot
Speaker 2: more now.
Speaker 1: Next, on our final episode of Sanctum Unmasked.
Speaker 2: You should get collateral on these people. You should hide cameras.
Speaker 2: You know you've got these billionaires fucking you know, these girls,
Speaker 2: you've got like all these celebrities. If you had that collateral, man,
Speaker 2: you'd control Hollywood.
Speaker 6: It encourages you to continue wearing the mask, not literally,
Speaker 6: but symbolically for lobsters.
Speaker 3: Right you put them in the water and then it
Speaker 3: starts boiling. They don't realize they're in the boiling water
Speaker 3: till it's killing them.
Speaker 1: Sanctum Unmasked is the production of School of Humans and
Speaker 1: iHeart podcasts. Posted and written by me Carly Schortino. Edie's
Speaker 1: Perez is our lead producer and story editor. Amelia Brock
Speaker 1: is our senior producer. Sound design, scoring and mixing by
Speaker 1: George Hicks. Original music composed by Jesse Niswanger, fact checking
Speaker 1: by Austin Thompson. Loco illustration by Linda McNeil. Josh Hook
Speaker 1: is our recording engineer. Recorded at iHeart Studios in Los Angeles, California.
Speaker 1: Executive producers are Nick Stump, Jason English, Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr,
Speaker 1: Elsie Crowley, and me Carly Schortina. If you're enjoying the show,
Speaker 1: help us get the word out by leaving a rating
Speaker 1: in your favorite podcast app. You can keep up with
Speaker 1: Damon on Instagram. He's at Father Damon been in next
Speaker 1: week
Speaker 4: MHM.