Speaker 1: School of Humans.
Speaker 2: Sanctum Unmasked is about a sex club and describes various
Speaker 2: sex acts. Please use discretion where and when you listen.
Speaker 2: So let's go back for a minute to twenty thirteen,
Speaker 2: the year Damon started Sanctum. Twenty thirteen might not seem
Speaker 2: that long ago, but it was definitely a decade ago
Speaker 2: gag and also a very different time. If you need
Speaker 2: a refresher, President Obama was beginning his second term, Wrecking
Speaker 2: Ball by Miley Cyrus was driving everyone insane. The world
Speaker 2: was finally emerging from the recession of the financial crisis
Speaker 2: and entering a period of refocusing on wealth and status. Also,
Speaker 2: sexual taboos were still very much taboo back then, like
Speaker 2: high end sex clubs weren't really a thing yet, at
Speaker 2: least in the US. People still liberally threw around the
Speaker 2: word hooker as an insult. Gave marriage wouldn't be legalized
Speaker 2: in the US by the Supreme Court for another two years,
Speaker 2: and the Me Too movement and all of the conversations
Speaker 2: around consent that it inspired was still years away. Basically,
Speaker 2: we've come pretty far. You couldn't conceive of Sanctum today
Speaker 2: and build it to be what it was yes It
Speaker 2: was new, exciting and transgressive, but it was also very
Speaker 2: right place, right time.
Speaker 3: Damon just represented this culmination of seeking the high end.
Speaker 3: So what was the ultimate of sex? Damon brought that
Speaker 3: culture to, you know, a certain level of people who
Speaker 3: could pay for it, but weren't cool enough to find
Speaker 3: it themselves. He took the obvious and made it work.
Speaker 4: Maybe what I did is fucking stupid and pointless and
Speaker 4: just like all about gluttony and selfishness, turn it into
Speaker 4: whatever you want. I created, you know what became quoting
Speaker 4: the press the most elite sex club in the world,
Speaker 4: whatever that means to people.
Speaker 5: Does that have any value? Whatsoever? I mean, I don't know,
Speaker 5: but certainly there is incredible value.
Speaker 4: I think in this idea that we set ourselves free
Speaker 4: to consider what are the possibilities for us as individuals?
Speaker 4: You know, what might we do if we weren't so
Speaker 4: constrained in our own minds about what is right and
Speaker 4: wrong and correct and incorrect? Because if I did anything,
Speaker 4: I actually allowed myself to dream and then made.
Speaker 5: That dream come true.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Sanctum Unmasked. I'm your host, Carl Schortino. So
Speaker 2: to answer Damon's question, Yeah, a lot of people would
Speaker 2: argue that Sanctum in an out of itself, had incredible value.
Speaker 2: Of all the people we talked to during this process, Claudia,
Speaker 2: Sanctum's longtime performer, was the one who consistently spoke of
Speaker 2: her time at Sanctum as deeply transformative.
Speaker 6: I feel like it just opened my eyes to so much.
Speaker 6: Like it opened up my eyes to sexuality, my own sexuality,
Speaker 6: my comfort level with myself, and just looking at sex
Speaker 6: a little less taboo.
Speaker 2: And she credits a lot of that to Damon personally.
Speaker 6: Damon just has like a natural aura to him, Like
Speaker 6: if you talk to him for five minutes, you're like, Okay,
Speaker 6: this guy doesn't like have a bad bone in his body.
Speaker 6: He wants everybody to do well. He's everybody's biggest fan.
Speaker 6: Like he's a lover of life and love, and like
Speaker 6: you pick up on that.
Speaker 2: David Winkler had a somewhat similar experience. Remember he's the
Speaker 2: sugar Daddy who had a threesome at Sanctum that ended
Speaker 2: with applause from boy or guests glamorous. For David, his
Speaker 2: time at the club had a laugh impact on his
Speaker 2: relationship with himself and his partners.
Speaker 7: I think Sanctum contributed to my sexual exploration in that
Speaker 7: before I went, I wondered, is there something really kinky
Speaker 7: about me that I just don't know that I haven't explored?
Speaker 7: You know what am I missing? Because I'm really vanilla?
Speaker 7: Like I tried choking a girl in section. She laughed
Speaker 7: at me, She's like, come on, David, you're too nice cute.
Speaker 7: You know, you go and you see people with whips
Speaker 7: and chains, and you see people tied up, and you
Speaker 7: see people using toys you've never seen before. And I
Speaker 7: was actually surprised that I didn't discover that there was
Speaker 7: anything kinky about me that I never knew. I don't
Speaker 7: know if you can call anybody who has a threesome,
Speaker 7: you know, on a massage table in front of twenty
Speaker 7: people vanilla. I think that what I discovered was I
Speaker 7: was more confident than I ever knew. But I definitely
Speaker 7: felt that I was part of a community, and I
Speaker 7: definitely felt that I was not alone. And I definitely
Speaker 7: became much more comfortable discussing sex with other people. And
Speaker 7: I feel like I'm a better partner because of my experiences.
Speaker 2: Yet again, wholesome. Now, this is not the outcome most
Speaker 2: people would expect from an elite and depraved Hollywood sex party, right,
Speaker 2: but it's kind of inspiring, of course, Like literally anything
Speaker 2: on Earth, people's experience of Sanctum varied widely. Take Lea,
Speaker 2: for example, who we met in a previous episode. She's
Speaker 2: been going to Sanctum as a guest since twenty fifteen,
Speaker 2: and she's a bit of a sex party connoisseur, having
Speaker 2: been to many different types of events, from high end
Speaker 2: sex parties to more DIY floor mattress vibes to be
Speaker 2: DSM dungeons, and so her take on Sanctum as an
Speaker 2: institution is pretty specific. In certain respects, she could see
Speaker 2: that it was offering something invaluable.
Speaker 8: When I've gone to Sanctum, it's been a lot of newbies,
Speaker 8: and I do feel like it has been nice to
Speaker 8: see people take that first step. I brought a friend
Speaker 8: and there was someone flogging and sinking, and she had
Speaker 8: never done anything like that, and so it was really
Speaker 8: lovely seeing her kind of like spread her wings a
Speaker 8: little bit and have that like first effort vescence of
Speaker 8: like ooh. I liked this sensation.
Speaker 2: However, from her perspective, Sanctum didn't offer the depth of
Speaker 2: community that other sex parties have been able to In part,
Speaker 2: she feels because the elite and exclusive nature of it
Speaker 2: creates a kind of performativity that can be a barrier
Speaker 2: to connection.
Speaker 8: I feel like spaces to explore sexuality should be affordable
Speaker 8: and accessible. I would say that Sanctum is a very glamorous,
Speaker 8: elite sex that focuses on aesthetic and offers opportunities to
Speaker 8: be a voyeur and to dip your toes into the
Speaker 8: realm of sex parties. But I would say that it
Speaker 8: does not necessarily offer the authenticity of intimacy. I think
Speaker 8: that anonymous element is actually a really huge part of it,
Speaker 8: and it's funny because it's personified literally through the mask
Speaker 8: that is the emblem of Sanctom, and it encourages you
Speaker 8: to continue wearing the mask, not literally but symbolically. And
Speaker 8: I feel as though some of the other sex party
Speaker 8: experiences I've had really wants you to take off these
Speaker 8: layers so that you can connect deeper in maybe that
Speaker 8: intimate way you've never shared with anyone else before, but
Speaker 8: in a space that you can be held in and seen.
Speaker 2: So like Sanctum was fun for sure, but for Lea,
Speaker 2: and I'm sure a lot of other people. There's something
Speaker 2: about having a more inclusive space that allows for a
Speaker 2: more meaningful community to develop too. Of anyone we spoke to,
Speaker 2: Ambrose's experience of Sanctum was definitely the most complicated. He
Speaker 2: held multiple positions throughout his three years working the club,
Speaker 2: from the bunny role he was hired for, to being
Speaker 2: a dom to a live sex performer, and as we
Speaker 2: talked about, a side hustle sex worker, and there were
Speaker 2: some times when the club was empowering for him.
Speaker 9: It meant so many different things to me at different
Speaker 9: points at Sanctum, I was in the dom role, Like
Speaker 9: I was like the house dom and stuff, and like
Speaker 9: sometimes during that time it was literally what was saving
Speaker 9: me and keeping my head above water because I felt
Speaker 9: so meek and small and like fragile from my abusive
Speaker 9: ex And then I'd like be able to come to
Speaker 9: Sanctum and like step into those six inch I heels
Speaker 9: that I wore, whar this tight skirt thing or what
Speaker 9: have you, and have the whip, but know that people
Speaker 9: listen to me and looked up to me and whatnot.
Speaker 9: It definitely kind of helped me through that in some.
Speaker 2: Ways, at other times it sucked, if you remember. Ambrose
Speaker 2: also talked about being sexually assaulted by guests, particularly one
Speaker 2: creep who was trying to put his fingers in Ambrose's
Speaker 2: vagina when he wasn't looking, which clearly falls into the
Speaker 2: category of never fucking do that. I mean, I've said
Speaker 2: it before, but it bears repeating. Sanctum was a messy
Speaker 2: free for all at times. Stuff that was happening at
Speaker 2: the club in twenty thirteen, even twenty seventeen would never
Speaker 2: fly now.
Speaker 9: They didn't like teach people enough about like informed consents.
Speaker 1: They would also like, let you drink a lot.
Speaker 9: And it wasn't until like towards the end of being
Speaker 9: there that they tried to cut back on people's drinking
Speaker 9: as performers. And I feel like it definitely added to
Speaker 9: my alcohol problem, And there were different times when I
Speaker 9: got coke from people who worked there or people who
Speaker 9: were guested there who had it.
Speaker 2: Ambrose's experience was also especially complicated because of his close
Speaker 2: personal relationship with Damon. They've both said that for years
Speaker 2: during Sanctum they felt almost like siblings. They were each
Speaker 2: other's confidants. However, after Ambrose left Sanctum and had more
Speaker 2: distance from it, His feelings about his time there started
Speaker 2: to sour. He started talking negatively about the club publicly
Speaker 2: saying that Sanctum was a toxic working environment, and Daemon
Speaker 2: was upset about it and also confused because he says,
Speaker 2: Ambrose never aired those grievances with him personally. Today they
Speaker 2: don't speak. Of course, our experiences of our lives, sex,
Speaker 2: very much included, are not binary. Something can be fun
Speaker 2: and enlightening and traumatizing all at once. It's like a
Speaker 2: but for feelings. Or sometimes something can feel okay or
Speaker 2: even good in the moment, and then years later we
Speaker 2: look back and think, oh my god, how did I
Speaker 2: survive that.
Speaker 10: For lobsters, right, you put them in the water and
Speaker 10: then it starts boiling and they're like, oh, what a
Speaker 10: nice warm Beth. They don't realize they're in the boiling
Speaker 10: water till it's killing them. And I didn't realize I
Speaker 10: was in a not great environment. So it was like,
Speaker 10: you're really not okay for me.
Speaker 9: In some ways I regret it. In some ways, I
Speaker 9: wouldn't change anything.
Speaker 2: What seems consistent is that people were changed by their
Speaker 2: time at Sanctum. For better and sometimes for worse. Despite
Speaker 2: the emotional chaos, rampant elitism, and murky boundaries, Sanctum was
Speaker 2: able to offer something to people that they couldn't find elsewhere.
Speaker 2: When I asked Melissa about the cultural significance of Sanctum,
Speaker 2: she had this to say.
Speaker 11: I think as a society, as a community, I think
Speaker 11: it's a good thing to open up the dialogue of
Speaker 11: sex and sexuality. And if Sanctum was that, then I
Speaker 11: think that that's great. I'm sure it helped some couples.
Speaker 11: I'm sure it tore some couples apart. It did for me,
Speaker 11: you know, my relationship fell apart. But I do feel like,
Speaker 11: all in all, it's exactly as it should have been.
Speaker 2: What's that saying hindsight is I was twenty twenty. But
Speaker 2: where are Damon and Melissa today? We'll get to them
Speaker 2: after the break. So when we left you last episode,
Speaker 2: Damon was confronting the reality of his sex and alcohol addictions,
Speaker 2: and he ultimately decided to sell Sanctum, a decision he
Speaker 2: never thought he'd make. And if you've been following the show,
Speaker 2: you know that Damon went on quite the odyssey to
Speaker 2: get to that point. From bankruptcy to billionaire orgies, to
Speaker 2: blood oath initiation rituals, Damon achieved his crazy, honestly stoned
Speaker 2: sounding dream. Who have thought Tom crowse would be so inspirational.
Speaker 2: Damon bluffed his way to incredible success and then delivered.
Speaker 2: And throughout this process, his morals were tested and he
Speaker 2: was forced to make big decisions. When I asked Damon
Speaker 2: if he feels he chose wisely, he said this.
Speaker 4: These were things that I couldn't say no to. You know,
Speaker 4: I had to go on this journey. But having done it,
Speaker 4: you know, if someone could give me this time machine
Speaker 4: and say you can go back to that time and
Speaker 4: you can just put your head down and keep selling
Speaker 4: real estate and not have created this thing at this
Speaker 4: moment in my life, I would have never drawne that symbol.
Speaker 4: I would have never gone on this journey because losing
Speaker 4: and giving up and pushing away the things that meant
Speaker 4: and mean the most to me in this life was
Speaker 4: a mistake.
Speaker 5: That's my truth.
Speaker 2: So we all know Damon's like, whoops, I gave up
Speaker 2: my family for this dream. But you might be asking yourself,
Speaker 2: where's Melissa in all of this? I don't know about you,
Speaker 2: but I'm really invested in her happiness. By this point,
Speaker 2: Melissa was always Damon's biggest supporter, through the good and
Speaker 2: the bad. Through losing everything in the financial crisis, escaping
Speaker 2: to Bali only for Damon to refuse to pay them
Speaker 2: mafia and almost get himself killed. Through raising kids, infidelity,
Speaker 2: dealing with substance abuse issues, multiple emotional breakdowns, more infidelity, divorce.
Speaker 2: You can imagine how that relationship today might be difficult,
Speaker 2: But actually they're pretty good friends and successfully co parenting
Speaker 2: their kids. Melissa is now happily living that domesticated family life.
Speaker 2: She always felt drawn to remember her boyfriend Billy, who
Speaker 2: she broke up with to get back with Damon, only
Speaker 2: for it to crash and burn for the seventieth time. Well,
Speaker 2: Billy ended up sticking around.
Speaker 11: Currently, I'm remarried with four teenagers living in Westwood, super
Speaker 11: domesticated life or like the Brady Bunch.
Speaker 2: That's Damon and Melissa's two daughters plus Billy's two teenage
Speaker 2: kids as well, living that mixed family Kardashian general lifestyle.
Speaker 11: I'm going to culinary school, taking a course in restaurant
Speaker 11: management because I have been asked to open a restaurant
Speaker 11: with a friend of mine, and I'm like, well, yes, but.
Speaker 1: I don't know anything about the restaurant business. So currently
Speaker 1: that's literally what I'm doing. I'm like in school and
Speaker 1: I'm a mom and just live in here doing the thing.
Speaker 2: When I asked Damon how things were going between him
Speaker 2: and Melissa, now you could tell it was a vulnerable
Speaker 2: question for him.
Speaker 5: I'm curious to know what she would say.
Speaker 4: You know, our relationship now is very loving, very caring,
Speaker 4: but we don't spend much time together. She is married
Speaker 4: and she is on her own path, and she's trying
Speaker 4: to make the best life she can with her new husband.
Speaker 4: And you know, she has the kids far more than
Speaker 4: I do. I do plan on adjusting that now soon.
Speaker 4: But our relationship is as good as it can be.
Speaker 4: You know, we shared an intimacy and a love and
Speaker 4: a companionship that we just can't anymore. But we are
Speaker 4: very kind and civil and good with each other. I
Speaker 4: hope that she would say the same thing to me.
Speaker 4: I mean, is she carrying around like animosity and like
Speaker 4: bad feelings towards me? I mean maybe somewhere, but she
Speaker 4: doesn't express it to me.
Speaker 1: He seems great and better than I've ever seen him.
Speaker 11: And I'm proud of where he's come from and everything
Speaker 11: that he's done and gone through and he's come out
Speaker 11: the other side, and you know, we're still great friends
Speaker 11: to this day.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, he says, if I could go back,
Speaker 2: I would never do it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I know.
Speaker 1: He said that to me all the time, and.
Speaker 2: I don't want to put words of mouth, although I'm
Speaker 2: not really, but I think he's like not over it.
Speaker 11: I represent a security for him. It took care of him,
Speaker 11: cooked for him, coddled him. I was a loving, affectionate
Speaker 11: like I was all of that enveloped for him for years.
Speaker 11: I was also incredibly codependent, you know, like I'm doing
Speaker 11: my own therapy and work on myself and I'm the
Speaker 11: biggest codependent there is, you know. So I just wanted
Speaker 11: to be loved and I just thought that that's what
Speaker 11: it was, and so I gave everything and then some
Speaker 11: and the boundaries were pushed and I didn't care, and
Speaker 11: I just kept the relationship afloat and a float and
Speaker 11: a float, and that was that's on me. You know,
Speaker 11: I'm still that woman, and I'm still doing all the
Speaker 11: things taking care of my family, taking care of my
Speaker 11: new husband. But I think that I represent security, and
Speaker 11: I'm the mother of his kids, and I know that
Speaker 11: he loves them, and I know that he loves me deeply.
Speaker 2: Damon and Melissa met when they were really young. She
Speaker 2: was eighteen, he was twenty six, and they were together
Speaker 2: for twenty years. That's a long time. Actually, it's three
Speaker 2: times longer than the average celebrity marriage. Fun fact, if
Speaker 2: anyone cares. And in that time they realized that what
Speaker 2: they each needed to be happy was really different. It's
Speaker 2: a familiar story. You remember Hadria, Damon's sister. Well, she
Speaker 2: and Melissa are still close too, and they still sometimes
Speaker 2: get together and gossip about Damon. I mean, how could.
Speaker 12: You not Damon when he met mel I feel like
Speaker 12: they were partying a lot. They grew together, but a
Speaker 12: part in ways, because Damon is still Damon and mel
Speaker 12: kind of grew up and they still have an incredible
Speaker 12: love for each other and an understand I don't think
Speaker 12: anybody understands Damon the way mel does. But as I
Speaker 12: was saying, you look at her partner. He's not like Damon,
Speaker 12: Mel's husband now, he's like super grounded, works hard, does
Speaker 12: well You know, it's like stable.
Speaker 2: Which is what Melissa always wanted. Stability. And while Damon
Speaker 2: has many wonderful qualities, I think he himself would admit
Speaker 2: that stability has not been one of his top priorities.
Speaker 2: But one thing he does excel at is saying exactly
Speaker 2: what's on his mind, which is a quality that's perhaps polarizing,
Speaker 2: but that I definitely feel drawn to. It certainly makes
Speaker 2: for a good podcast subject. At least. It's this sort
Speaker 2: of unfiltered honesty that is made speaking with Damon over
Speaker 2: these past months so fun because he says shit like this.
Speaker 4: I mean, I've always wondered I'm going to say it
Speaker 4: out loud, because fuck it, you know, I've always wondered
Speaker 4: what it would be like if we had sex again.
Speaker 5: Like I can't help but wonder.
Speaker 4: I mean, we're like brother and sister in a way
Speaker 4: at this point, but I still wonder, like, what would
Speaker 4: it be like if me the way I am now
Speaker 4: and her the way she is now, if we came
Speaker 4: together and we could really just like have that experience.
Speaker 4: I mean, it might be just fucking stellar. You know,
Speaker 4: I don't know, and I'm never gonna find out, but.
Speaker 5: I just said it out loud.
Speaker 4: I hope you're listening, Melissa, She's gonna be like, Damon,
Speaker 4: shut the fuck up, what the fuck is wrong with you?
Speaker 2: I can tell you hear her saying that right now,
Speaker 2: and I can hear her saying that too. So Damon
Speaker 2: and Melissa's daughters are now fourteen and seventeen, which is
Speaker 2: a complicated period of your life to confront the fact
Speaker 2: that your dad ran, you know, the most elite sex
Speaker 2: club in the world. It's kind of a given that
Speaker 2: no one wants to think too hard about their parents
Speaker 2: having sex, let alone having blood, ritual porn, fivesomes or
Speaker 2: whatever the fuck Damon was up too. But Damion and
Speaker 2: Melissa are doing their best to manage this reality for
Speaker 2: their daughters in whatever ways they can.
Speaker 1: They don't follow him on social media.
Speaker 11: We've like blocked that connection, like we got smart with
Speaker 11: all of that because we weren't back then. He's sat
Speaker 11: them down and talked to them about what he did
Speaker 11: for a living. And I know they've seen some imagery
Speaker 11: online because you can google it and you can find
Speaker 11: a whole bunch of stuff.
Speaker 1: So I know that they've done that.
Speaker 11: They all have phones, they all have access to the Internet,
Speaker 11: so cats out of the bag, like they know. But
Speaker 11: the thing with our girls is they're very mature. They
Speaker 11: are super savvy and street smart.
Speaker 1: It just is what it is.
Speaker 11: And I think they love their dad so much and
Speaker 11: they love me so much, and.
Speaker 1: It's just an accepted part of their lives.
Speaker 2: But also there might be some perks to your dad
Speaker 2: being a former sex god.
Speaker 4: I'm so when they can talk about anything about sexuality
Speaker 4: with them, not like, you know, make sure he wears
Speaker 4: a condom, which of course is important, but like there's
Speaker 4: other parts of sexuality they're important too, you know, And
Speaker 4: I'm able to talk to them about that stuff, like
Speaker 4: have conversations, Like sex can be fucking amazing and beautiful,
Speaker 4: but you have to really be open with your partner
Speaker 4: and talk about it before and some of it's going
Speaker 4: to be embarrassing, So like, you know, make sure that
Speaker 4: you have a dialogue because it's going to be a
Speaker 4: major part of your relationship.
Speaker 5: It just is.
Speaker 2: So one of the most interesting parts of this whole
Speaker 2: story to me is that after all of his exploration,
Speaker 2: after years of doing sanctum, trying nominogamy, fucking ten thousand women,
Speaker 2: and flogging every willing Hoe in Beverly Hills in search
Speaker 2: of sexual enlightenment. After all that, where Demons ended up
Speaker 2: today is he's realized that what's right for him is monogamy.
Speaker 11: I know.
Speaker 2: Right now. Demon says he's been alcohol free and casual
Speaker 2: sex free for about a year and have and that
Speaker 2: journey began at the start of twenty twenty two with
Speaker 2: sixty days of celibacy.
Speaker 4: I mean, I've been in AA and I spent a
Speaker 4: lot of time. Then I did the steps and all
Speaker 4: of that. But you know, when I went to the
Speaker 4: sex anonymous meetings, I don't know, I felt uncomfortable there.
Speaker 4: It didn't feel like it was working, or I shouldn't
Speaker 4: say it didn't feel like it was working. I didn't
Speaker 4: give it a chance to work. But what I did
Speaker 4: was I just because alcohol is abstinence, I decided to
Speaker 4: be sexually abstinate, you know, I decided to be celibate.
Speaker 4: And in sixty days of celibacy, my compulsions and the
Speaker 4: things that I was doing became under control and I
Speaker 4: and one day at a time, I would say like, okay,
Speaker 4: no texting, you know, no sending videos back and forth.
Speaker 4: If you receive a video deleted immediately, like any interactions
Speaker 4: you have with women are platonic. You are not having
Speaker 4: sex one day at a time.
Speaker 2: After sixty days of not railing, for the first time
Speaker 2: in years, he felt like he had some semblance of
Speaker 2: control over his sexuality. He felt good, and he discovered
Speaker 2: this this other crazy thing, which is that you can
Speaker 2: be a man who's actually just friends with women who
Speaker 2: knew now. Damon says a primary focus of his life
Speaker 2: is making sure that he maintains discipline when it comes
Speaker 2: to his addictions, because he wants to show up as
Speaker 2: his best self for his family, and he's actually really
Speaker 2: enjoying his new, less unhinged lifestyle. Yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's an alcoholic, always an alcoholic. I mean probably,
Speaker 4: it's a sex addict, always a sex addict. Probably it's
Speaker 4: in you. But you know, if you do the work,
Speaker 4: then I don't have the cravings to either drink or
Speaker 4: you know, engage in sort of like sexual activity that
Speaker 4: could be harming to myself or others. And when I
Speaker 4: say harming, I don't mean in the sense that I
Speaker 4: would ever do anything nonconsensual, because I wouldn't, but that
Speaker 4: I would do things that maybe would harm a relationship
Speaker 4: I'm inn I would do things that were just extremely
Speaker 4: selfish and I just didn't care. I didn't give a fuck,
Speaker 4: Whereas now I do feel like, you know, I have
Speaker 4: a responsibility to the people in my life that I
Speaker 4: care about and that I love, you know, and I
Speaker 4: want to be who I am today.
Speaker 2: Essentially, after rebelling against the status quo, after his Holier
Speaker 2: than Now monogamy is for idiots, marriage is bullshit era,
Speaker 2: he was able to step back, assess his own experiences,
Speaker 2: and make an informed decision about what actually makes him happy.
Speaker 4: I stepped into monogamy with a feeling that this is
Speaker 4: how it had to be. That's all I heard growing up,
Speaker 4: and that's all I knew. And I was like, I
Speaker 4: don't like being forced into this thing. I'm going to
Speaker 4: rebel against it. And boy did I rebel against it.
Speaker 11: Right.
Speaker 4: Like, if you force people to do things that you
Speaker 4: think are morally right, if you force them into that
Speaker 4: place and you cancel or shame them because they're not
Speaker 4: in that place, they're going to rebel against it. What
Speaker 4: I learned was that once I was given sort of
Speaker 4: my free will back, Okay, damon, you're free choose what's
Speaker 4: best for you. I actually ended up choosing monogamy and
Speaker 4: committing to it as a personal decision, and it made
Speaker 4: such a fucking difference.
Speaker 11: Right.
Speaker 2: Doing something by default doesn't leave much room for autonomy.
Speaker 2: And this isn't to say that monogamy is right or wrong.
Speaker 2: The point is not being shoehorned into a lifestyle because
Speaker 2: you know, society told you it was the only option,
Speaker 2: having the space and opportunity to choose something that's really powerful.
Speaker 2: Until recently, Demon was in a monogamous relationship for one
Speaker 2: year until they mutually called it quits. But the monogamy
Speaker 2: was a positive experience. Now he's single, and according to him,
Speaker 2: he's decided to only have sex within the context of
Speaker 2: a committed relationship.
Speaker 4: I am experiencing sexual enlightenment, but as far as, like,
Speaker 4: you know, really having sort of a transcendent sexual experience,
Speaker 4: I'm finding that it comes with commitment to a person
Speaker 4: and trust and feeling really safe with that person. You know,
Speaker 4: having that kind of sexual enlightenment cannot come from having
Speaker 4: multiple partners and different people every night. And you know,
Speaker 4: can you find it there? I didn't find it there.
Speaker 2: There's a quote from the famous sex therapist Esther Perel
Speaker 2: that I really love and I think is relevant here
Speaker 2: she says, sometimes when we seek the gaze of another
Speaker 2: it isn't our partner we are turning away from, but
Speaker 2: the person we have become. We are not looking for
Speaker 2: another lover as much as another version of ourselves. Basically,
Speaker 2: it can be unfortunately easy to start feeling like you're
Speaker 2: boring or unattractive, or like your life has become too predictable,
Speaker 2: And a big way that many of us try and
Speaker 2: mend that problem is by seeking out someone new who
Speaker 2: could make us feel desired or interesting through their eyes.
Speaker 2: And it works for a while, at least until you
Speaker 2: have to do it again and again, and you know, it's,
Speaker 2: like Melissa said last episode, I'm paraphrasing, but if you're
Speaker 2: trying to fill the emotional black hole inside your chest
Speaker 2: by fucking as zillion people, it's.
Speaker 1: Not going to work.
Speaker 2: Ultimately, it's about are you enough? Sure? Sanctum and all
Speaker 2: the sex and praise and celebrity it brought to Damon
Speaker 2: made him feel special, but like with any addiction, the
Speaker 2: highs were high but short lived, and the lows made
Speaker 2: him want to blow his fucking brains out. His words
Speaker 2: clearly this emotional rollercoaster was rough on Melissa too, but
Speaker 2: there was something she took away from spending so much
Speaker 2: time with all those pervs.
Speaker 11: In my sex life. Now, I am not any of
Speaker 11: those things. I'm not kinky like, I'm not like that.
Speaker 11: But what I did take away from that whole experience is,
Speaker 11: you know, a knowledge of human desires and what people
Speaker 11: want and need. I saw so many different types of
Speaker 11: people at that club, because there's a lot of celebrities
Speaker 11: that went.
Speaker 1: There, are a lot of moms and dads that went,
Speaker 1: people that you would think would be at a club
Speaker 1: like that.
Speaker 11: So now when I walk around on the street or
Speaker 11: when I'm like in some kind of social place, I'm like,
Speaker 11: mm hmm, you don't fool.
Speaker 1: Me with that, Paullyanna look you're trying.
Speaker 11: To do Because everybody I think has some kind of
Speaker 11: interest or some kind of thing with like exploring that
Speaker 11: where they want to tell you that or not.
Speaker 2: It's true. Believe me, I've interviewed enough square seeming marine
Speaker 2: biologists who moonlight as professional doms to know that while
Speaker 2: one may read as normcore, there's a good chance they're
Speaker 2: actually a freak from how It's part of what makes
Speaker 2: people so weird and exciting, and as hard as it
Speaker 2: all was for Melissa, she's come to accept the journey
Speaker 2: for everything it represents.
Speaker 1: It was an interesting part of my life, for better
Speaker 1: or worse.
Speaker 11: I don't really regret it, like it's all part of
Speaker 11: the movie, the Story of my life.
Speaker 1: It was a chapter. It happened. I own it. I
Speaker 1: did it, like just that's what I was.
Speaker 2: Interestingly, in the process of making this podcast and reflecting
Speaker 2: on his own experiences, Damon made some unexpected discoveries about
Speaker 2: his past. If you remember a few episodes back, we
Speaker 2: learned about Demon and Hadria's childhood growing up in northern
Speaker 2: California and a household full of alcohol and drugs, physical
Speaker 2: and sexual abuse. In one particularly harrowing moment, Hadria recalled
Speaker 2: being present while Damon, who was six at the time,
Speaker 2: was being molested by an older family member of theirs,
Speaker 2: and what Hadria didn't realize during our conversation was that
Speaker 2: Damon actually didn't remember her witnessing that well.
Speaker 4: Before she did the podcast, she said, can I talk
Speaker 4: about everything?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 4: Is there anything off the table? And I said, no,
Speaker 4: I've I talked about our childhood. I'm not holding anything back,
Speaker 4: and then afterwards, you know, she said, I talked a
Speaker 4: little bit about what happened with you. And I was like,
Speaker 4: what do you mean, And she was like, well, I
Speaker 4: was there. I had forgotten that. I had forgotten that
Speaker 4: she was in the room when it was happening and
Speaker 4: she was watching. I don't know if I had forgotten
Speaker 4: it or blocked it out, but when she said it,
Speaker 4: I instantly remembered that she was there. I instantly remembered
Speaker 4: moments when she said to me, like, I want to
Speaker 4: do this too with you. It looked fun because you're
Speaker 4: a kid, and it does look fun, probably, And I said, no,
Speaker 4: I must have known that it wasn't okay. We were
Speaker 4: there together in this, in this insanity and this abuse,
Speaker 4: and we were like each other's there was no one
Speaker 4: else there to protect us.
Speaker 5: But each other. And yeah, so like I knew that,
Speaker 5: I knew that I couldn't.
Speaker 4: I knew that I didn't want to cross that line
Speaker 4: with her even as a little kid.
Speaker 2: After this revelation, demon put together that there might be
Speaker 2: some connection between his sister watching him expe sperience this
Speaker 2: as a child, and thirty five years later choosing to
Speaker 2: have sex in front of an audience at Sanctum.
Speaker 4: At Sanctum, I mean it's fun to have people watch,
Speaker 4: and I could almost feel especially energy from females who
Speaker 4: are watching, like that feeling of like that looks fun.
Speaker 5: It's so weird. It's what happened when with my sister
Speaker 5: though that looks fun.
Speaker 4: This is like the stuff you talk about with a shrink, right,
Speaker 4: I mean it really is, like, you know, to be
Speaker 4: saying all of this out loud is insane.
Speaker 2: Perhaps insane, but also interesting. I guess podcast interviews are
Speaker 2: the new therapy.
Speaker 5: God.
Speaker 4: All of that stuff is just so intense and I
Speaker 4: definitely have like pushed it down and in some ways,
Speaker 4: you know, this project Sanctum was, you know that there
Speaker 4: was a lot of that in there. There was this
Speaker 4: incredible childlike beauty and curiosity about sexuality mixed with this
Speaker 4: darkness of abuse and confusion.
Speaker 5: And that's what Sanctum was.
Speaker 12: I do want about Sanctom Why Damon chose all that
Speaker 12: and then getting celebrities to think she's great and all
Speaker 12: the people celebrating him, and its confusing as being sexually abused,
Speaker 12: Like physically it feels good, but maybe it's not good,
Speaker 12: Like how do you connect those two. That's what's so
Speaker 12: confusing about sex in general. I think that what Damon
Speaker 12: and I went through as children definitely fucked us up somewhat.
Speaker 12: I know I have issues that I'm still working through.
Speaker 5: I think he is too.
Speaker 12: I feel like he's in a much better place, and
Speaker 12: it seems like that's where he is now.
Speaker 2: Obviously growing up together in that often dark and chaotic environment,
Speaker 2: demon and Hadria share a specific and special connection. Like Melissa,
Speaker 2: Hadrian knows Damon in a rare and intimate way. She
Speaker 2: knows his joys and his pains. She knows him at
Speaker 2: his best and his worst too, and like any sibling,
Speaker 2: sometimes she like to drag him.
Speaker 12: I love him. I think that Gamon is he doesn't
Speaker 12: even realize sometimes what he does. I was talking to
Speaker 12: Melissa about this, like he's kind of like, oh did
Speaker 12: I do that? Like I didn't realize that my behavior
Speaker 12: had affected you, kind of thing like well in a
Speaker 12: china shop.
Speaker 2: So basically, Damon's a hasti verkle. But seriously, those who
Speaker 2: know Damon best seem to mostly agree that his sometimes
Speaker 2: shitty behavior isn't coming from a place of malice or manipulation.
Speaker 2: He's just kind of clueless about it. Like Mike Sager
Speaker 2: put it, Damon just blunders forward. And honestly, all those
Speaker 2: billionaires and slubs that were jizzing all over his living
Speaker 2: room should be grateful for that, because Demon could have
Speaker 2: been way more conniving with the power he amasked.
Speaker 4: People were telling me at one point, like, you should
Speaker 4: get collateral on these people, you should hide cameras, so like,
Speaker 4: you know, you've got these billionaires fucking you know, these
Speaker 4: these girls, you've got like all these celebrities. If you
Speaker 4: had that man, you'd control Hollywood. But thank god, my
Speaker 4: instinct was to be like, ah nah, that's fucked up.
Speaker 4: Like I don't want to be that person, because I've
Speaker 4: made so many fucked up moral decisions in my life.
Speaker 4: You know, I've done stupid things. And I understand how
Speaker 4: you could cross that line. I understand how you could
Speaker 4: take that power and be like, Okay, let's create like
Speaker 4: a secret cult for just these women, and we'll brand
Speaker 4: them and they'll be.
Speaker 5: Like our slaves.
Speaker 4: But luckily I could see how just manipulative and fucked up.
Speaker 2: That is. Lucky for the billionaires. Damon cared more about
Speaker 2: blowjobs than blackmail, as we've learned. While all the money
Speaker 2: and validation from celebrities were definitely perks, Damon's goal was
Speaker 2: more about sexual enlightenment, even if that desire led him
Speaker 2: down some dark paths. And Hadria sees that too.
Speaker 12: He's very spiritual, you know, but he's always right too,
Speaker 12: Like what he's doing in the moment is acceptable and right,
Speaker 12: and then maybe after the fact to look back and
Speaker 12: he'll think, that's not who I want to be. I
Speaker 12: want to do esteemable acts and be a good person.
Speaker 12: And like when he was doing Sanctum it was great,
Speaker 12: and now that he's not doing it, I think that
Speaker 12: he sees the things that aren't good anymore. It's funny
Speaker 12: because he's really naive in ways. He's not out to
Speaker 12: hurt anybody, because there's no time for that. It's Damon's world.
Speaker 12: It's like he's a spiritual narcissist.
Speaker 2: You can always count on your siblings to be a
Speaker 2: little too real with you. But also, I mean, who
Speaker 2: among us hasn't looked back at our past and cringed
Speaker 2: about something or realized we were living life in a
Speaker 2: way that felt right at the time, but now looking
Speaker 2: back seems deranged. I'm pretty sure, that's called growth. After
Speaker 2: the break, I go to Sanctum.
Speaker 13: Yay.
Speaker 2: So a few weeks ago I finally went to Sanctum
Speaker 2: for the first time. This is Sanctum in its new incarnation,
Speaker 2: of course, if you remember from last episode. In twenty nineteen,
Speaker 2: Damon sold the club to an anonymous investment group called
Speaker 2: The Circle. Fittingly, I have to admit I went to
Speaker 2: the party not expecting to love it. I just anticipated
Speaker 2: it being a bit elitist and cheesy.
Speaker 11: You know.
Speaker 2: I was being pretentious about the expectation of other people
Speaker 2: being pretentious. But honestly, I had the best time, and
Speaker 2: I'm truly not just saying that because this is a
Speaker 2: podcast about Sanctum. Remember, they confiscate your phone at the door,
Speaker 2: so I don't have any photos or audio from the night,
Speaker 2: so you'll just have to take my word for it.
Speaker 2: The party starts late, so I showed up at eleven thirty.
Speaker 2: I'd come from a birthday party and was wearing a
Speaker 2: sun dress with healed sandals. I'd brought a nicer outfit
Speaker 2: for the party, but I was being lazy and thought
Speaker 2: that I could maybe get away with what I had
Speaker 2: on and the dormant immediately looked me up and down
Speaker 2: and made a really disappointed face. And I was like,
Speaker 2: I have a slugier outfit in my bag, should I change?
Speaker 2: And he was like, please, l rude. So I put
Speaker 2: on a corset dress and stilettos, and honestly, thank god
Speaker 2: because when I got in, everyone was very elegantly dressed,
Speaker 2: like tuxes or chic cocktail dresses or a lot of
Speaker 2: the women were wearing extremely high end slash complicated lingerie.
Speaker 2: There were about one hundred and fifty people there. No
Speaker 2: one was wearing a mask. Interestingly, I guess we're in
Speaker 2: a post mass society. To give you a picture, the
Speaker 2: party was at a giant penthouse in downtown LA. The
Speaker 2: place was crazy. It took up the entire top floor,
Speaker 2: so all the exterior walls were these ginormous floored ceiling
Speaker 2: windows that had epic sweeping views of the city. The
Speaker 2: main area was a big open living room space with
Speaker 2: a free bar, and then there was a handful of bedrooms,
Speaker 2: which is where most of the fucking was happening. And
Speaker 2: then you could walk up this grand staircase to the roof,
Speaker 2: where there was a glamorous pool and a hot couple
Speaker 2: of naked, coked up hot girls giving blowdrops, and network
Speaker 2: execs all overlooking the glimmering lights of Los Angeles. So basically,
Speaker 2: would all of those QAnon freaks think that Hollywood people
Speaker 2: are up to They're right, at least in this case.
Speaker 2: There was actually more racial diversity than I expected based
Speaker 2: on what we heard about Sanctum and its previous incarnation. However,
Speaker 2: it was still overwhelmingly white. It also skooed younger than
Speaker 2: I would have thought. The majority of people were mid
Speaker 2: twenties to forty ish, which is younger than in the
Speaker 2: Damon days. I guess it's all that young tech money.
Speaker 2: Of course, the hottest guy talked to there founded a
Speaker 2: vight pen company, and Damon was there too, So in
Speaker 2: the years since he sold the club, he has not
Speaker 2: said the nicest things about its current iteration, saying that
Speaker 2: it feels sanitized, more corporate, that sort of thing. However,
Speaker 2: he's recently gone to the party a couple times after
Speaker 2: having not been in over a year, and he had
Speaker 2: an ex experienced that he wasn't expecting.
Speaker 4: Strangely enough, I went, and I was so happy and
Speaker 4: impressed by what the new owner is doing. It felt
Speaker 4: like a family reunion in some ways. There was so
Speaker 4: much love in that room. There's a lot of sexuality,
Speaker 4: and there were great people, and yeah, I just saw
Speaker 4: that like this thing that I created that I sort
Speaker 4: of have been in a way talking down on, you know,
Speaker 4: because for me, it was something that I needed to
Speaker 4: walk away from, and maybe to walk away from it,
Speaker 4: I had to have some animosity for it.
Speaker 5: But being there, I didn't hate.
Speaker 4: It at all, and I saw that I did create
Speaker 4: something really beautiful and really special.
Speaker 2: Honestly, he was kind of a celebrity at the party.
Speaker 2: A lot of people knew who he was and wanted
Speaker 2: to talk to him, and he was constantly surrounded by
Speaker 2: women who wanted him to tie them up in shibari
Speaker 2: rope bondage. I saw a couple of real celebrities, but
Speaker 2: iHeart lawyers won't let us drop any names, which is annoying. Also,
Speaker 2: I probably shouldn't out people if I want to be
Speaker 2: invited back. A real takeaway from Sanctum for me was
Speaker 2: how almost eerily nice everybody was. There's also something about
Speaker 2: being in an environment where people are naked and having
Speaker 2: sex that just shatter social norms. It makes people way
Speaker 2: more likely to talk to strangers and just be vaguely
Speaker 2: unhinged in a fun way. And while it's annoying that
Speaker 2: I don't have any audio to play you from the night,
Speaker 2: it's also just so nice to be at a party
Speaker 2: where no one is texting or in a selfiek hole.
Speaker 2: I got a chance to talk to Robert Artes, who's
Speaker 2: now the managing director at Sanctum, about all of this.
Speaker 14: I mean, it's like no other party and a degree
Speaker 14: of openness people have and how friendly they are. I'm
Speaker 14: continuously kind of surprised and our guests to come. Often
Speaker 14: the feedback that we get is about the crowd and
Speaker 14: the experience of meeting these other people.
Speaker 2: Currently, Sanctum hosts regular parties in New York and LA
Speaker 2: and occasional one offs in places like Miami and London.
Speaker 2: In Manhattan, they have a massive three story penthouse where
Speaker 2: they host all of their events, and the payment structure
Speaker 2: has stayed somewhat the same sense. Damon sold it. If
Speaker 2: you're approved into this exclusive society, one off tickets to
Speaker 2: the party start at twenty five hundred dollars per couple.
Speaker 2: A yearly membership is twelve five hundred dollars. A Dominance
Speaker 2: membership is fifty thousand dollars a year, and there is
Speaker 2: also still a Violet Key benefactor tier, which they treat
Speaker 2: as more of an investor than a member that sells
Speaker 2: for one million dollars. Rich people are fucking crazy, And
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, this shit is definitely elitist, but so
Speaker 2: is a lot of stuff like I can't go to
Speaker 2: the metcalap But I don't think that means it should
Speaker 2: be canceled. I do think it's valid to examine the
Speaker 2: ways that the vast inequalities in our society can be problematic,
Speaker 2: and this is in part what we have attempted to
Speaker 2: do on this podcast. Interestingly, when I was at Sanctum,
Speaker 2: the majority of guests did not have sex. For the record,
Speaker 2: neither did I. I can barely hold hands in public,
Speaker 2: let alone hook up in front of an audience. Many
Speaker 2: of the guests I spoke to about why they came
Speaker 2: to Sanctum said something similar Basically, where else can you
Speaker 2: get the experience of watching other people have sex and
Speaker 2: be part of that energy? I mean, fair point. The
Speaker 2: basic party format is the same as when Damon was
Speaker 2: running it. They still have the choreograph live sex shows. Obviously,
Speaker 2: there are some things about the party that are different now.
Speaker 2: I mean, in a post me to world, how could
Speaker 2: there not be.
Speaker 14: There was nothing so much that I wanted to change
Speaker 14: drastically about it, but I wanted it to evolve. I mean,
Speaker 14: we are a sex positive brand, and one thing that's
Speaker 14: incredibly important to us, and it's prerequisite for this working
Speaker 14: at all, is that we operate, for instance, on affirmative consent.
Speaker 14: If someone violates a core conduct, we have essentially a
Speaker 14: one strike policy. They just won't be friends.
Speaker 2: Fact, the club also occupies a different space culturally now,
Speaker 2: but according to Robert, that doesn't make it any less relevant.
Speaker 14: I think when it starts, it was on the fringes,
Speaker 14: but his time goes on, it's becoming less on the fringes.
Speaker 14: It's become edgy now. So I think the culture is shifting,
Speaker 14: and I think has a role in shifting the culture
Speaker 14: as well, showing people that this can be something beautiful.
Speaker 2: And it is beautiful, or at least beautiful enough that
Speaker 2: I stayed until four am and made roughly ten thousand
Speaker 2: new best friends that I'll probably never speak to again.
Speaker 4: When I was running it, you know, especially in the heyday.
Speaker 4: I had management coming at some point and start to
Speaker 4: kind of take over because to me, it was like,
Speaker 4: this is our world to just be fucking debochrous and
Speaker 4: anything goes. And you know, I don't like to say
Speaker 4: this out loud, but my performers were fucking guests and
Speaker 4: it was a free for all at times. But that
Speaker 4: doesn't happen anymore. He drew the line because he's a
Speaker 4: businessman and so with that mindset, it's a different party.
Speaker 4: He found a way to sort of contain the parts
Speaker 4: that maybe weren't okay and still make it an incredible party.
Speaker 4: He took what I did, and he made it safer.
Speaker 2: Now, while Damon acknowledges all that's great about Sanctum today,
Speaker 2: he doesn't think it's perfect. And who can create the
Speaker 2: perfect sex club. Well, according to Damon, it's him and
Speaker 2: him alone, and so, shock horror, Damon is about to
Speaker 2: start another sex club. The club, which launches this summer,
Speaker 2: is called Puzzle. According to the website, it's a quote
Speaker 2: sensual utopia for fine dining and celebration in a member's
Speaker 2: only sanctuary on the Sunset Strip. So Puzzle will feature
Speaker 2: fifteen dining tables, a swanky bar, a dance floor, and
Speaker 2: there will also be some tables with privacy curtains so
Speaker 2: people can indulge a bit more so to speak, so
Speaker 2: also sometimes host pajama parties. It's essentially a hybrid between
Speaker 2: what Sanctum was and a brick and mortar restaurant. There
Speaker 2: are three membership tiers. The top is ten thousand dollars
Speaker 2: a year, the bottom is twenty five hundred dollars a year,
Speaker 2: plus the arm and a leg. You'll spend on the
Speaker 2: fancy food and champagne of course, And as the Puzzle
Speaker 2: application makes very clear, quote if you are accepted as
Speaker 2: a member of Puzzle, know how special you are. We
Speaker 2: don't have enough space to say yes to many. In fact,
Speaker 2: we only have room for the best. In other words,
Speaker 2: this podcast has not solved economic inequality. Damon's also launching
Speaker 2: a new cannabis brand, aptly titled sex Weed. Honestly, I
Speaker 2: got to give it to him. The name is good.
Speaker 4: I'm working on some incredible things right now, and I'm
Speaker 4: really excited about what's next for me. The things that
Speaker 4: I'm interested now in doing still involve sexuality. There's this
Speaker 4: skill set that I have that not that many people have,
Speaker 4: and I don't understand what it is exactly, but it
Speaker 4: comes from this root of love for being together with
Speaker 4: another person, for making love and feeling those feelings. So
Speaker 4: I'm not abandoning sexuality, but I I'm ruining myself more
Speaker 4: in a place of how can I make these experiences
Speaker 4: the most beautiful and the most healthy that they can be.
Speaker 2: So the question we keep coming back to on this
Speaker 2: podcast is what happens when you shed societal expectations and
Speaker 2: just unapologetically pursue personal sexual freedom. What do you gain
Speaker 2: from that? And does there have to be a cost? Well,
Speaker 2: I think there's a lot to be gained. It's potentially
Speaker 2: an incredible adventure full of fun, weird, sexy, hilarious and
Speaker 2: connective experiences. There's also a lot of self knowledge to
Speaker 2: be gained in the exploration of sexuality.
Speaker 13: But yeah, I.
Speaker 2: Do think there's also a cost to this sort of pursuit.
Speaker 2: The physical and emotional vulnerability that's inherent in this exploration
Speaker 2: is risky fucking territory. Hello, That's why most people don't
Speaker 2: do it. For Damon, obviously, the cost was his marriage
Speaker 2: and not being around so much during his daughter's childhoods Unsurprisingly,
Speaker 2: a common cost of pursuing sexual freedom is sacrificing the
Speaker 2: opportunity to have a more traditional, committed relationship. As the
Speaker 2: platitude goes, there's no reward without risk. But we also
Speaker 2: have to ask what does sexual freedom mean anyway? Does
Speaker 2: true freedom mean being able to do whatever the fuck
Speaker 2: you want twenty four to seven or does it mean
Speaker 2: something different? Because having zero boundaries isn't the same as
Speaker 2: being free. It might seem counterintuitive, but boundaries can actually
Speaker 2: be well Freeing limits help provide a structure for our
Speaker 2: lives and help to clarify expectations, which can be grounding
Speaker 2: and can make us feel safe. And there's no freedom
Speaker 2: without safety. Also, too much choice can be oppressive and exhausting.
Speaker 2: It's like when you go to Sephora and are faced
Speaker 2: with a wall of forty thousand vitamin C serums and
Speaker 2: you freeze and then spend forty five minutes panic googling
Speaker 2: reviews and they get so overwhelmed that you leave with nothing.
Speaker 2: The irony is demon needed to make those choices, to
Speaker 2: take that risk in order to learn that actually it
Speaker 2: wasn't a risk worth taking, at least for him.
Speaker 4: And I do think that I started Sanctum with an
Speaker 4: idea of this like spiritualized sexual experience, but I got
Speaker 4: caught up in the ego of it. So rather than
Speaker 4: just say, okay, well this was all a wasted effort,
Speaker 4: what I'm feeling now really truly is that this was
Speaker 4: an incredible learning experience and I can go into places
Speaker 4: I wasn't aware of before and really make some special
Speaker 4: things happen. You know. I just want to be a
Speaker 4: great dad. I want to be a great ex husband.
Speaker 4: Maybe I can go on to do something that has
Speaker 4: some real value.
Speaker 2: Our pal, Mike Saeger, had one final poignant observation.
Speaker 3: The conflict was Damon. He missed Melissa because he's a lover,
Speaker 3: not a fighter. He wants to be in a relationship.
Speaker 3: He's like the caricature of a man in that sense,
Speaker 3: wanting variety and yet wanting to be loved. Damon made
Speaker 3: that perfect kind of character that he's got it all,
Speaker 3: but he's not happy because he just wants to be
Speaker 3: like the rest of us. And that's the thing that
Speaker 3: really strikes any audience. That's why fallible heroes and underdogs
Speaker 3: are the best characters in literature and storytelling, because people
Speaker 3: identify with that.
Speaker 2: And this is probably why you listener have made it here,
Speaker 2: because Damon's story, as bizarre and outlandish as it is,
Speaker 2: is inherently relatable and obviously all the blood of Ceremony
Speaker 2: stuff was hilarious too. But maybe something about this story
Speaker 2: sparked a curiosity about these things for yourself. So what
Speaker 2: can you do to find sexual enlightenment if you can't
Speaker 2: afford thousands of dollars for a ticket to an Illuminati
Speaker 2: sex party? I don't fucking know. I don't know you,
Speaker 2: But a good first step, as Damon has pointed out,
Speaker 2: is to ask ourselves what would I want if I
Speaker 2: could have anything? Because when we break through our mental
Speaker 2: barriers and challenge the default settings we're taught to obey,
Speaker 2: that's when we begin to understand what we want and need,
Speaker 2: Like what turns me on? What kind of relationships make
Speaker 2: me feel safe and fulfilled? Where can I buy one
Speaker 2: of those sexy lamp costumes? And why the fuck is
Speaker 2: sex work so taboo in our society? Why don't I
Speaker 2: just ask my partner to strap me down on the
Speaker 2: dining table and feed me lobster and donperi yon, or
Speaker 2: more realistically, shrimp from prosecco and then have their way
Speaker 2: with me. Having conversations about these things with your partner
Speaker 2: or your friends will ideally make you feel less alone.
Speaker 2: Like David Winkler said, You're not the only pervert in town.
Speaker 2: Because true freedom, I think, is being able to decide
Speaker 2: for yourself, whether that means having daily five sums to
Speaker 2: the soundtrack of Monks Chanting or spending seventy years in
Speaker 2: a monogamous relationship. But finding what works takes some trial
Speaker 2: and error.
Speaker 4: And I'll leave it with this my Aunty West. You know,
Speaker 4: when I was doing Sanctum, she was.
Speaker 5: Like, what are you doing to change the world?
Speaker 4: All these you know, rich guys and young girls and
Speaker 4: it's just bullshit? And I'd be like, no, West, Like
Speaker 4: I'm fucking opening up people's minds and like society's been
Speaker 4: making people feel like sex was bad, and I'm like
Speaker 4: liberating people you don't understand, you know. While I was
Speaker 4: sort of like having that conversation with her and fighting
Speaker 4: against that any of what she was saying could be real.
Speaker 4: You know, with time, I look back and I think
Speaker 4: maybe she was right about some of that. Maybe my
Speaker 4: intentions were good, but maybe I wasn't getting it right,
Speaker 4: and so yeah, maybe I'll get it right this time.
Speaker 2: And isn't that the hope for all of us? Then
Speaker 2: we'll get it right this time. Okay, I gotta go.
Speaker 2: I'm late for original sacrifice and I'm playing the Virgin
Speaker 2: Sanctum Unmasted is the production of School of Humans and
Speaker 2: iHeart Podcasts, Hosted and written by me Carly Schortina. Edily's
Speaker 2: Perez is our lead producer and story editor. Amelia Brock
Speaker 2: is our senior producer. Sound design, scoring and mixing by
Speaker 2: George Hicks. Original music composed by Jesse Niswanger, backchecking by
Speaker 2: Austin Thompson. Local illustration by Linda McNeil. Clay Hillenberg is
Speaker 2: our recording engineer. Recorded at iHeart Studios in Los Angeles, California.
Speaker 2: Executive producers are Nick Stump, Jason English, Virginia Prescott, Branded
Speaker 2: barr Els Crowley, and me Carly Schortina. If you're enjoying
Speaker 2: the show, help us get the word out by leaving
Speaker 2: a rating in your favorite podcast app. You can keep
Speaker 2: up with Damon on Instagram. He's at Father Damon. Thanks
Speaker 2: for listening.