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. Rich people can get the best of everything,
Speaker 1: or maybe not the best, but at least the most expensive,
Speaker 1: and that includes sex. The uber wealthy don't have to
Speaker 1: tragically doomswipe on dating apps to find a stranger to
Speaker 1: hook up with. They can have sex delivered to them
Speaker 1: on a silver platter metaphorically speaking, although I'm sure that's
Speaker 1: been done literally too, Or if they're so inclined, they
Speaker 1: can hire a professional to curate a bespoke sexual experience
Speaker 1: that plays out their wildest fantasies. And well, these are
Speaker 1: the kind of people that Damon knew he wanted to
Speaker 1: cater to. Remember back in our first episode, when he
Speaker 1: was wandering the streets of Beverly Hills trying to think
Speaker 1: what he could offer the super rich. Well, he managed
Speaker 1: to do it. He found his depraved little niche. Now,
Speaker 1: when we left you last, Damon's personal life was basically
Speaker 1: up in flames. But as that was happening, the club's
Speaker 1: success was skyrocketing. It was as if there was an
Speaker 1: inverse relationship between the two. The worse his marriage with
Speaker 1: Melissa grew, the more rich and successful he became. It's
Speaker 1: like that quote from The devilwares Prada, when our King
Speaker 1: Stanley Tucci says, let me know when your whole life
Speaker 1: is up in smoke, that means it's time for a promotion.
Speaker 1: The year that Damon and Melissa broke up, twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: Damon moved into the Sanctum mansion and began what would
Speaker 1: be the club's most lucrative era, with people paying him
Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of dollars for a membership literally, and
Speaker 1: all the success, the money, the proximity to celebrity, well,
Speaker 1: it started to go to his.
Speaker 2: Head at that time. I definitely wanted to create something
Speaker 2: that was very elitist. I wanted to attract those types
Speaker 2: of people. That definitely was part of the driving force
Speaker 2: of Sanctum was like, I can be king of my
Speaker 2: own little world here. I think that part of my
Speaker 2: success must have been because I was that person.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Sanctum unmasked, I'm your host, Carl schortinau So,
Speaker 1: Sanctum was one of the hottest parties in town, and
Speaker 1: like any good members only club, you had to apply
Speaker 1: to get in, which of course makes the whole thing
Speaker 1: more appealing. The club's popularity had surpassed even Damon's expectations,
Speaker 1: and was now getting hundreds of applications for every event,
Speaker 1: from which they'd select the most desirable hundred, so an
Speaker 1: invite to the party was a hot commodity. Damon's social
Speaker 1: media had turned into a constant stream of naked selfies
Speaker 1: from girls begging him to pretty please let me into
Speaker 1: the party, and as the club's overlord, he decided who
Speaker 1: made the cut. He was essentially god of who's hot
Speaker 1: and who's not. And it's no secret that Sanctum had
Speaker 1: a type when it came to women.
Speaker 2: This gets tricky because of what, you know, what it
Speaker 2: implies that we were only letting in beautiful girls or
Speaker 2: whatever that means. What is beauty? And am I the
Speaker 2: person was like the gatekeeper? And yeah, you know I was.
Speaker 2: They would send in pictures and videos and most of
Speaker 2: them were they weren't wearing clothes, and you know, they
Speaker 2: really wanted to get into this party, and we chose
Speaker 2: the ones that seemed like they were going to be
Speaker 2: the most right for it, and generally those were the
Speaker 2: ones who were super attractive. And you know, sometimes someone
Speaker 2: would just be super sexy in their attitude and you
Speaker 2: knew they would add something really special. So it wasn't
Speaker 2: just purely looks, but I mean, yeah, it was based
Speaker 2: a lot on that.
Speaker 1: Basically, no fugly people unless they were super cool. Along
Speaker 1: with sending photos of themselves, everyone who wanted into the
Speaker 1: party had to fill out an application. It included questions
Speaker 1: about your work, passions, sexual fantasies, what you could offer
Speaker 1: to the Sanctum community. It essentially were like a super
Speaker 1: inappropriate resume.
Speaker 2: And those answers were pretty telling. When someone would be
Speaker 2: like you need me there, like, I wouldn't respond to
Speaker 2: that person. There was so much ego involved from so
Speaker 2: many of these people, obviously, and I didn't want like
Speaker 2: a bunch of assholes in there. There were times when
Speaker 2: I let them in because they were buying you know,
Speaker 2: eight seven, eight thousand dollars tables, and I needed the
Speaker 2: fucking money. But once I got to the point where
Speaker 2: I didn't need the money I got, I sort of
Speaker 2: got stricter and stricter with the kinds of men that
Speaker 2: I would let in.
Speaker 1: And no assholes unless you were super rich. It's important
Speaker 1: to note that the vast majority of clientele at Sanctum
Speaker 1: were wealthy and white, and that definitely plays into the
Speaker 1: dynamics at the club. I Though Damon says his intention
Speaker 1: was to curate a positive, open environment, that wasn't always
Speaker 1: the result. This may come as a surprise to some people,
Speaker 1: but something about privilege can make people think they get
Speaker 1: to act however the fuck they want.
Speaker 2: I mean, men would generally like thirties to you know,
Speaker 2: mid fifties. Those guys in their fifties were the guys
Speaker 2: who were paying the big membership fees, and so you know, three,
Speaker 2: four or five of those guys, they would pay for
Speaker 2: that whole party. I did let in some younger men,
Speaker 2: and I had so many problems with guys in their twenties.
Speaker 2: They would slap a girl's ass or something drunk, They
Speaker 2: felt very entitled, They looked good, they had nice bodies,
Speaker 2: and they were handsome, and I wanted some of that
Speaker 2: energy for sure, But a lot of them were fucking idiots.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've dated a lot of those guys. Anyway, Anyone
Speaker 1: who's into hosting, whether it's a casual dinner or a wedding,
Speaker 1: knows that a party, it's only as good as it's guests.
Speaker 1: We all know those people who just always get invited
Speaker 1: to everything because they're super funny or generous, or they
Speaker 1: bake the best cookies or whatever. Well, these rules also
Speaker 1: apply to sex parties, minus the stuff about baked goods.
Speaker 2: I don't know if it's gonna sound weird enough, but
Speaker 2: if I saw men that were like really pleasing women,
Speaker 2: you know, they were eating pussy, they had big dicks,
Speaker 2: they were fucking really good, I would invite them back.
Speaker 2: I wanted those guys that were going to please women
Speaker 2: because without those women, I had no parties. And if
Speaker 2: it was just like older men that were rich and
Speaker 2: supporting the event, the women would stop coming. I guess
Speaker 2: in that were some of the top porn stars. I
Speaker 2: mean guys with like, you know, fourteen inch fucking dicks,
Speaker 2: and I would never meet them in the real world,
Speaker 2: but they were at my party.
Speaker 1: I love when straight guys get all excited by other
Speaker 1: guys dicks. I find it really sweet. Honestly, Damon clearly
Speaker 1: wanted there to be something on the menu for all
Speaker 1: of his guests, even if it meant promoting unrealistic boner standards. Okay,
Speaker 1: by this point, you pervs are probably wondering how much
Speaker 1: did Sanctum cost anyway? And is it in my budget? Well,
Speaker 1: the answer to that was always changing. When Sanctum launched
Speaker 1: back in twenty thirteen, a ticket cost one hundred bucks.
Speaker 1: Memberships were fifteen hundred, which gave you access to a
Speaker 1: live sex performance on the night, but the more successful
Speaker 1: the club became, the more it charged. By twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: when Damon moved into the Sanctum mansion, admission to a
Speaker 1: single party was twenty five hundred dollars for a single man,
Speaker 1: two thousand dollars for a couple, and free for single women.
Speaker 1: Tickets were upward of ten thousand dollars if you wanted
Speaker 1: a table with bottle service. Yearly membership started at ten k,
Speaker 1: which basically just meant you were pre paying for every
Speaker 1: party that year, whether you went or not. But that
Speaker 1: wasn't expensive enough for Damon's richest Hornius guests. It was
Speaker 1: becoming clear to him that actually it seemed the more
Speaker 1: he charged, the more attractive the memberships were. Human psychology
Speaker 1: is weird like that, I guess. So Damon's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm just going to start experimenting with how much I
Speaker 1: can charge before people tell me to go fuck myself.
Speaker 1: So he comes up with the idea to create a
Speaker 1: higher tier of membership called Dominus. Dominant members would pay
Speaker 1: seventy five thousand dollars per year. Of course, he knew
Speaker 1: he had to offer something special to make it worth
Speaker 1: the money, and as someone who's always been obsessed with
Speaker 1: secret societies, he comes up with this.
Speaker 2: I liked the idea of an initiation ritual of some kind.
Speaker 2: I was reading some stuff on just a different kind
Speaker 2: of tribal societies initiating young men into the tribes, and
Speaker 2: it was like a coming of age thing where you
Speaker 2: had to go from a boy to a man. And
Speaker 2: so there was something about that that I liked because
Speaker 2: I didn't experience any kind of ceremony that would take
Speaker 2: me from boyhood to manhood. And so I just came
Speaker 2: up with this thing.
Speaker 1: This thing being a blood oath ceremony. Yes, it is
Speaker 1: what it sounds like. Okay, let me break this down.
Speaker 1: When someone bought a Dominant membership, Damian would host a
Speaker 1: ritual initiation at either the Sanctum mansion or the member's home.
Speaker 1: There was a lot of pomp and circumstance, like really
Speaker 1: leaning into the whole secret society thing. There were robes,
Speaker 1: there was candles, there was probably some chanting, and the
Speaker 1: member would be given a lapel pin to wear at
Speaker 1: the parties to advertise their special dominant status.
Speaker 2: And I did it in a way that was definitely
Speaker 2: felt ceremonial. You know. I had these cool leather snake
Speaker 2: skin bound boxes with these snake sculptures on top, and
Speaker 2: you'd open the box and inside you would find like
Speaker 2: your lapel pin, and those who were selling for a lot,
Speaker 2: you know, an incredibly I mean, that's a huge sum
Speaker 2: of money.
Speaker 1: For the ceremony. The inductee would sit on the bed
Speaker 1: with two performers from the club. One performer would whisper
Speaker 1: a secret password in his ear that could be used
Speaker 1: to get backstage access at the parties, so like basically
Speaker 1: you could hang out in the green room and watch
Speaker 1: the performers fluff themselves before live sex shows.
Speaker 3: For instance, I honestly used to crack up with the
Speaker 3: other performers the fact that they wouldn't get people to
Speaker 3: pay for this, because it honestly felt like a waste
Speaker 3: of money to me.
Speaker 1: That's Ambros again, Sanctum's longtime performer he participated in a
Speaker 1: lot of dominant ceremonies. Remember he's a trans man, but
Speaker 1: back when he was working at Sanctum was still presenting
Speaker 1: as fem Here he is remembering how these dominant ceremonies
Speaker 1: went down.
Speaker 3: We don't get a drink, have some brief small talk
Speaker 3: real quick, and then Damon would break out his little
Speaker 3: ornamental like box thingy he had, and he had this
Speaker 3: like crafted up like contract that was like on off
Speaker 3: white paper. It looks like those projects I did in
Speaker 3: elementary school.
Speaker 1: We'd have to teaseta in the paper.
Speaker 3: Here's this official Sanctum scroll. He'd say some words and
Speaker 3: read the fucking contract, singing like part of their like
Speaker 3: phrase was like in Latin and shit.
Speaker 1: So what did this fancy scroll say anyways?
Speaker 2: Cause I'm even remember it, but it was like, you know,
Speaker 2: you're now initiated to the inner Sanctum, and you're now
Speaker 2: part of this secretive society, and we've got this password
Speaker 2: to get into this private room or whatever.
Speaker 1: Deep Now, I know what you're thinking, where's the blood
Speaker 1: in this so called blood oat ceremony? Well, chill out,
Speaker 1: I'm getting there after the break. Okay, back to the
Speaker 1: blood ritual stuff. After the whole scroll part was over,
Speaker 1: it was finally time for the member to sign the contract.
Speaker 1: Now Damon would produce a spear from his robe and
Speaker 1: slice the hand of the new member. They would then
Speaker 1: bleed out onto the scroll and drink their own blood
Speaker 1: from a chalice. Then they'd kneel before Damon, declaring him
Speaker 1: the Almighty sex Club God. Lol, just kidding. I'll just
Speaker 1: let Damon explain it.
Speaker 2: What we did was, and this is going to sort
Speaker 2: of demystify it in a sense. But I went to
Speaker 2: like write eight, and I bought those testing kits when
Speaker 2: you have diabetes with the little needle things, and the
Speaker 2: needle would pop out of the little plastic thing and
Speaker 2: it would prick your finger, and then if you squeeze
Speaker 2: your finger, you know, you can get a little bit
Speaker 2: of blood, not much, but enough blood to put it
Speaker 2: on to a contract. At the bottom of the page
Speaker 2: there was a lion head, and the idea is that
Speaker 2: you would take the blood from your finger and you'd
Speaker 2: put it on the lion head. And that was like
Speaker 2: part of the initiation.
Speaker 1: Oh right, that sounds more sanitary but less fun. Now,
Speaker 1: this was so obviously kind of funny, like it's essentially
Speaker 1: a bunch of middle aged men LARPing some serious game
Speaker 1: of throne shit. But there is something I really admire
Speaker 1: about Damon for his ability to just lean into the
Speaker 1: cheesy and the ridiculous with true sincerity. And people really
Speaker 1: responded to this, Like a ton of people bought these
Speaker 1: Dominant memberships. Yet again, this crazy idea was working.
Speaker 3: Honestly, sometimes felt like it is my life, Like it
Speaker 3: was very surreal. They had members that were like actors, comedians,
Speaker 3: sports players, musicians, like I met some people I never
Speaker 3: thought I would meet in my entire life, and it
Speaker 3: was always so weird as buck to me because they
Speaker 3: would be like, yeah, so it would be kind of
Speaker 3: cool someday if like after the end of civilization they
Speaker 3: like find this box the Dominant Sanctum members agreements and
Speaker 3: then they like genetically like use their blood and like
Speaker 3: recreate them. And I was like, what excuse me, have
Speaker 3: you even having too.
Speaker 4: Much k.
Speaker 2: There are a couple like things I saved from that time,
Speaker 2: and some of it is the blood of some of
Speaker 2: these huge celebrities. I just figured like at some point
Speaker 2: in their future, you know, this would be some kind
Speaker 2: of folklore like once they're dead. These things go in
Speaker 2: a museum or something like, this is the blood of
Speaker 2: blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: For the record, that's my favorite thing Damon's ever said.
Speaker 1: I love the idea that he still has a box
Speaker 1: of glamorous celebrity blood covered in dust somewhere in his attic.
Speaker 1: You never know when that sort of thing might come
Speaker 1: in handy. Oh, but there is one more vital part
Speaker 1: of the initiation.
Speaker 2: I mean, quite honestly, the person who was being initiated
Speaker 2: would have a threesome.
Speaker 1: Okay, now those high prices are making more sense, Like,
Speaker 1: I don't care if you're bezos rich. Who the hell
Speaker 1: pay seventy five thousand dollars for a lapel pin and
Speaker 1: a fingerprick?
Speaker 3: It was implied that we were like in offering to
Speaker 3: the new member to spend time with us both. It
Speaker 3: wasn't said outwardly like you're gonna have a threesome with them,
Speaker 3: that this person you need to make them come, but
Speaker 3: you could tell that was like what was expected of you.
Speaker 1: Now the way Ambrose just described the language Sanctum used
Speaker 1: in these ceremonies, that the performers would quote spend time
Speaker 1: with its members. That is essentially the loophole of sex work. Obviously,
Speaker 1: it's illegal to buy and sell sex virtually everywhere in
Speaker 1: the US. So for instance, if you go to a
Speaker 1: sex worker's website, they don't list the price of a blowjob.
Speaker 1: They list the price of an hour of their time,
Speaker 1: and then within that time, consenting adults can do whatever
Speaker 1: they want, and coincidentally, that might include a blowjob. And
Speaker 1: when it came to this whole initiation thing, Damon said,
Speaker 1: it was never hard to find performers who were down
Speaker 1: to be part of these ceremonies.
Speaker 2: I would say, like, you know, we're doing a dominant ceremony.
Speaker 2: This is who it's with, who wants to do it.
Speaker 2: I had plenty of performers who were more than happy
Speaker 2: to have a threesome with one of the biggest rock
Speaker 2: stars in the world, you know, and I would pay
Speaker 2: them for the ceremony. You know. It was a really
Speaker 2: fine line I was walking. And it's hard for me
Speaker 2: to speak of it because I think there probably some
Speaker 2: legal implications in all of it, But like in the
Speaker 2: way that I arranged things, and in the culture of
Speaker 2: what I was doing, and in the way that we
Speaker 2: spoke to each other about things, it was like this,
Speaker 2: you know you're gonna get paid to do this dominant ceremony.
Speaker 2: Whatever you decide to do is up to you, and
Speaker 2: I would make that crystal clear that sex was never expected.
Speaker 2: I'm telling you now, do not fuck anyone unless you
Speaker 2: want to fuck that. This is your choice. Then whatever
Speaker 2: happened between the three of them was between them. I
Speaker 2: didn't need to know this was for them now. Of course, afterwards,
Speaker 2: I would say so, what happened to the girls?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 2: They would tell me everything.
Speaker 1: And apparently they often provided some great gossip.
Speaker 2: There was one where the gentleman requested a strap on
Speaker 2: and afterwards I say, so, how you know, how was it?
Speaker 1: They're always it was great.
Speaker 2: He had the best time and he loved the experience.
Speaker 2: And I was like, so which one you know? Did
Speaker 2: you fuck? Hurt it? And they were like no, he
Speaker 2: had me put it on and I fucked him and
Speaker 2: I was.
Speaker 5: Like, oh, you know.
Speaker 2: Like, oh wow, that's incredible. I didn't even I just
Speaker 2: didn't think that.
Speaker 1: Remember this was back in twenty sixteen, before pegging was trending.
Speaker 1: Since the dominant memberships were doing so well, Damon was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I guess i'll just roll with this, and in my opinion,
Speaker 1: this is where stuff gets really crazy. So even the
Speaker 1: rich have hierarchies. There's the wealthy, the super wealthy, and
Speaker 1: the disgustingly wealthy. And if you're disgustingly wealthy, you don't
Speaker 1: want to be mistaken for some tragic super wealthy person
Speaker 1: Out in the regular, non masked orgy world. The rich
Speaker 1: use signifiers like fancy cars or broken bags or whatever
Speaker 1: to demonstrate their wealth. But at the parties, everyone's in
Speaker 1: fancy tuxes or lingerie and most people are wearing masks,
Speaker 1: so everyone's on an even playing field. But if you
Speaker 1: had that special Dominus lapelpin, you could signify that you
Speaker 1: were above other members. But what if you wanted something
Speaker 1: even more important than a lapelpin.
Speaker 2: I was just always testing the water to see what
Speaker 2: was possible at that point when I was charging seventy
Speaker 2: five thousand yearly for dominance, being part of the hierarchy,
Speaker 2: or showing off your status at saying, and became something
Speaker 2: worth spending money on. It's hard to build a business
Speaker 2: to that point where just wearing a lapelpin cost you
Speaker 2: seventy five thousand dollars a year, but you know, that's
Speaker 2: what Sanctum was. It was like it was this really
Speaker 2: high end brand and this thing that people wanted to
Speaker 2: identify with, and so they're willing to spend quite a
Speaker 2: bit of money for that status.
Speaker 1: So he creates an even higher tier of members, the
Speaker 1: Violet Key Benefactors or VKB. For sure, Damon only sold
Speaker 1: two VKB memberships. The first was for three hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty thousand dollars, the second was for four hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty five thousand dollars, nearly half a fucking million dollars.
Speaker 1: And for this you get legit, all you get is
Speaker 1: a ring.
Speaker 2: It's purely status. I mean, is there really that much
Speaker 2: of a difference between like the very top end five
Speaker 2: point fifty Mercedes leather interior that you can buy. I mean,
Speaker 2: those cars are amazing. I was just gonna say I
Speaker 2: actually drive one once. It's just totally bragging, but I
Speaker 2: do drive one. It's a fucking great car. A Rolls
Speaker 2: Royce is four times that would I rather be driving
Speaker 2: in a Rolls Royce. Luckily, I don't give a fuck,
Speaker 2: but many, many, many people do. This is our society,
Speaker 2: you know, we want to show off our wealth. We're
Speaker 2: all a bunch of fucking idiots, and we spend way
Speaker 2: too much money on products that are total bullshit because
Speaker 2: we want to be special. And I know that, and
Speaker 2: I knew that, and I still know it. So Sanctum
Speaker 2: was born out of that, and I just played it
Speaker 2: up and guess what it works.
Speaker 1: So before we talked about how being rich or super
Speaker 1: hot was basically your only way into Sanctum, and this
Speaker 1: created a gen discrepancy at Sanctum. Couples and men paid
Speaker 1: to get in, but single women got in for free.
Speaker 1: This isn't a new idea, Hello, ladies nights. Lots of
Speaker 1: bars and nightclubs charge men at cover while letting women
Speaker 1: in either for cheaper or free. The difference here is
Speaker 1: that instead of men paying twenty bucks for wing night
Speaker 1: at a sports bar at Sanctum, men were paying thousands
Speaker 1: of dollars for a ticket. So the difference is pretty glaring.
Speaker 1: Remember doctor Jeana Rangalova, the NYU Professor of Human Sexuality.
Speaker 1: We talked to her last episode about the potential benefits
Speaker 1: of sex parties for couples. Well In twenty fifteen, doctor
Speaker 1: Jana and sex researcher Brooke Wells surveyed thirteen hundred people
Speaker 1: across the US who had been to a sex party
Speaker 1: in the previous year, and part of what they asked
Speaker 1: participants was how much these parties cost, and there was
Speaker 1: a very wide range from totally free at the low end,
Speaker 1: some even being potlucks like bring your own food or
Speaker 1: or bring your own dog food even interesting. At the
Speaker 1: high end, parties generally cost a few hundred bucks, and
Speaker 1: then there were a select few extremely high end parties
Speaker 1: that cost into the thousands. The sex party survey also
Speaker 1: found that gendered pricing, meaning that men pay more, is
Speaker 1: actually pretty common. So why is that.
Speaker 6: The rationale for having gendered pricing is that there are
Speaker 6: many more single men who are interested and willing to
Speaker 6: go to these sex parties than there are single women.
Speaker 6: Men also generally make more than women do, and it's
Speaker 6: a way to incentivize women to come to these events,
Speaker 6: and it's also to disincentivize to many men being present.
Speaker 1: Basically, hot young women are likely less desperate to sleep
Speaker 1: with random strangers than most middle aged men are. It
Speaker 1: sounds gender essentialist, but like it's true. Seriously, on average,
Speaker 1: even couples get cheaper tickets than a single dude at
Speaker 1: a sex party. But how does the system of men
Speaker 1: paying a ton and women paying nothing affect the dynamics
Speaker 1: of the party Once you're inside.
Speaker 6: Gendered pricing creates a very uneven gender dynamic. What you
Speaker 6: often end up with are these fairly transactional type of
Speaker 6: dynamics where a lot of the people present are very
Speaker 6: wealthy men who are usually older, who are maybe not
Speaker 6: that attractive physically, not amazing lovers, you know, they're not
Speaker 6: the people that you might really want to fuck when
Speaker 6: you go to a sex party, but they have the
Speaker 6: money to afford. And then you have a lot of
Speaker 6: usually younger women who don't have the means, but they
Speaker 6: are very beautiful.
Speaker 1: Once she says it, it seems kind of obvious. But
Speaker 1: it's not just a case of hot girls being like, ugh,
Speaker 1: there's no que guys here. It's just a bunch of
Speaker 1: old losers who look vaguely like my dad. It's more
Speaker 1: complicated than that.
Speaker 6: When you're bringing in these people from very different socioeconomic
Speaker 6: strata together, but in that kind of transactional way, that's
Speaker 6: when you create a lot of possibilities for abuse, for
Speaker 6: non consensual behavior, or maybe consensual on the surface but
Speaker 6: not wanted behavior. You know, people kind of doing this
Speaker 6: because there's self pressuring into well, I'm already here, you know,
Speaker 6: I'm here at this very luxurious kind of kind of environment.
Speaker 6: I got in for free. Well maybe that means I
Speaker 6: do have to have sex with some of these guys
Speaker 6: that I don't actually want to have sex with, and
Speaker 6: I find that problematic.
Speaker 1: After hearing all of this, I wanted to talk to
Speaker 1: a woman who went to Sanctum as a guest to
Speaker 1: see how these dynamics felt in person. Leah is an
Speaker 1: actress in her thirties. She's been Sanctum many times over
Speaker 1: the past handful of years and always got in for free,
Speaker 1: and she had fun. I mean, she obviously kept going back,
Speaker 1: but she also acknowledges that the experience could feel a
Speaker 1: little complicated.
Speaker 7: I understand that Sanctum has a very specific niche and
Speaker 7: they're catering to a demographic that is more of the
Speaker 7: elite Hollywood glamorous vibe. And that's great, because listen, we
Speaker 7: all want to go into spaces where we feel like
Speaker 7: we're an eyes wide shut and it's fancy and pre
Speaker 7: champagne and all of that. But what was interesting to
Speaker 7: me being a guest where I don't have to pay,
Speaker 7: and knowing that there are people that have paid, and
Speaker 7: that there is a gender difference between that creates an
Speaker 7: imbalance of power. What is it about me that is
Speaker 7: being monetized? Because you have to be aware that if
Speaker 7: you're there for free, nothing is for free, and so
Speaker 7: therefore you're part of the experience.
Speaker 1: As the saying goes, there's no such thing as a
Speaker 1: free orgy. So unless you've been living in a black hole,
Speaker 1: you've probably been privy to one or a thousand conversations
Speaker 1: over the past few years about how consent can be
Speaker 1: complicated when one person has more power than another. In
Speaker 1: Sanctum's case, do you remember when Damon was talking about
Speaker 1: how he'd sometimes rent mansions from annoying rich guys who
Speaker 1: then feel entitled to act like douchebags at the party
Speaker 1: because they own the place. Well, Leah had this experience firsthand.
Speaker 7: I did have one instance where I was grabbed by
Speaker 7: the caller, this older man who actually owned the mansion
Speaker 7: that we were having the event at. He pulled me
Speaker 7: by the caller and was just like, Oh, what is
Speaker 7: this for? What do I get to do.
Speaker 2: To you with this?
Speaker 7: It made me feel like he thought he had some
Speaker 7: sort of permission to do that just because he owned
Speaker 7: the house, and it was it was a little dehuman.
Speaker 1: I feel like this is the sex party equivalent of
Speaker 1: she was asking for it. It's instances like this that
Speaker 1: left some women at Sanctum feeling like, wait, am I
Speaker 1: a guest at this party or am I the party?
Speaker 7: I mean, you definitely feel commodified, objectified in a different way.
Speaker 7: Like going to those events. I've definitely felt that that
Speaker 7: male gaze where you know you're being watched, You know
Speaker 7: that someone is looking for a specific experience and that
Speaker 7: you might be part of that for them. And I
Speaker 7: think that you can feel that way whether you go
Speaker 7: to a club or Sanctum or even the grocery store.
Speaker 7: But it definitely heightens the stakes when there is that
Speaker 7: integrated imbalance of power.
Speaker 1: It's true most women have felt like this at some
Speaker 1: point in their lives. But talking about all this stuff objectification, power, gender,
Speaker 1: it's all very nuanced now. It's no great revelation that
Speaker 1: power dynamics can also be really hot. That's why one
Speaker 1: of the most common sexual fantasies ever is professor student
Speaker 1: Objectification is often talked about like it's universally bad. But
Speaker 1: in my opinion, there's a time and a place for
Speaker 1: everything within the context of a relationship or a hookup
Speaker 1: with someone who respects you. Being treated like a sex
Speaker 1: toy can sometimes be a turn on, you know, but
Speaker 1: these things can be truly awful if they're happening without
Speaker 1: your consent. Objectification was something that Sanctum was certainly not
Speaker 1: afraid to explore. For instance, at some point Sanctums started
Speaker 1: doing live auctions of women at the party, and yes,
Speaker 1: it's exactly what it sounds like. Basically, a handful of
Speaker 1: Sanctums performers would get in a line and an auctionaire
Speaker 1: would list their stats, high measurements, age, stuff like that.
Speaker 1: He'd then have them do a little spin and then
Speaker 1: the men would start doing their bidding. If you one,
Speaker 1: their performer would quote hang out with you for the evening.
Speaker 1: And again, exactly what hanging out means is in the
Speaker 1: eye of the beholder. Claudia, a long time performer at Sanctum,
Speaker 1: was one of the women who was auctioned off. Here's
Speaker 1: how she remembers it.
Speaker 5: Everybody's in masks, so you can't really you can't really
Speaker 5: see who's bidding on you And you can't really see
Speaker 5: who the girls are either, And yeah, they would just
Speaker 5: stand up there, you know, butt naked, do their little
Speaker 5: twirl and you know, guys would start bidding. The girl
Speaker 5: would hang out either like lightly massage them or something
Speaker 5: and just basically be like there, I guess they're a
Speaker 5: little slave for the evening.
Speaker 1: For lack of better words. Now, Demon was aware that
Speaker 1: the exploration of this fantasy was complicated, and because of that,
Speaker 1: Sanctum was actually donating it's portion of the auctions proceeds
Speaker 1: to an organization called the Polaris Project that helps to
Speaker 1: fight human trafficking. After watching a couple auctions, Claudia told
Speaker 1: Damon she wanted in. Some of these women were being
Speaker 1: sold for upwards of ten thousand dollars and getting to
Speaker 1: keep most of the money. It seemed worth it, even exciting,
Speaker 1: so she went for it. It was interesting, I'll say
Speaker 1: that much.
Speaker 5: The couple times that I did do the auction, all
Speaker 5: like three four times, I met very interesting people. There
Speaker 5: were a lot of celebrities and stuff that I recognized
Speaker 5: a lot of very influential people. It's like, how else
Speaker 5: are you going to have the opportunity to speak to
Speaker 5: this person, but she.
Speaker 1: Liked it beyond just the opportunity to meet celebs. It
Speaker 1: also felt transgressive in a way that was kind of thrilling.
Speaker 5: I feel it like, if you break past what we've
Speaker 5: been taught about sex and sexuality and you know, don't
Speaker 5: talk about that, don't dress like that, don't explore that,
Speaker 5: I guess, exploring the taboo, right, exploring the things that
Speaker 5: most people are so terrified of. And I don't understand why.
Speaker 5: I feel like if we, as just humans just broke
Speaker 5: past that stupid barrier that society placed.
Speaker 1: On this, you would look at everything differently.
Speaker 5: You know, relationships, you know, yourself, like your confidence, Like
Speaker 5: I think my confidence grew and developed at these things
Speaker 5: and as like a full blown adult now, I guess,
Speaker 5: like I'm so thankful for that now.
Speaker 1: Part of what's exciting about sexual spaces is that we're
Speaker 1: all ideally giving ourselves and each other permission to explore
Speaker 1: the things that in the regular world would be quote
Speaker 1: unquote inappropriate, to examine our so called darker impulses, and
Speaker 1: what feels degrading to one person might feel empowering to
Speaker 1: somebody else, and these auctions are a perfect example of that.
Speaker 1: But because there's oas a butt, these things can get
Speaker 1: complicated when there's money and power were involved. Melissa was
Speaker 1: witnessed to some of these auctions and she did not
Speaker 1: feel good about them, particularly because a lot of the
Speaker 1: women participating were very young.
Speaker 4: That is what was the most extreme to me was
Speaker 4: the auctioning off of the girls. It's like or not
Speaker 4: auctioning cattle like they were numbered And that's not something
Speaker 4: that I stand with today at all. If you're auctioning
Speaker 4: something off, that means that someone bought you, that's someone
Speaker 4: paid for you.
Speaker 1: So now what does that mean? Do they own you? Then?
Speaker 8: What does that mean? Can they do whatever they want
Speaker 8: to you? So it's like becomes this ripple and that
Speaker 8: to me was dangerous. That's kind of where that's that's
Speaker 8: where it's got scary.
Speaker 1: It's just complicated because I'm like, I want these women
Speaker 1: to make decisions for themselves. That to me is a
Speaker 1: situation where I feel like these men are super powerful.
Speaker 1: You have to be a really strong, good boundaries person
Speaker 1: to advocate for yourself.
Speaker 8: Who is at eighteen, nineteen twenty, I don't know a lot.
Speaker 8: I couldn't even really set healthy boundaries when I was
Speaker 8: that age. That's what makes it so tricky, and that's
Speaker 8: what makes it so complicated, and that's what to.
Speaker 4: Me was so frightening about that aspect of the club.
Speaker 1: Between running a fast growing business and keeping hundreds of
Speaker 1: naked people safe, things were bound to get a little messy. Sure,
Speaker 1: there was an almost dough wide quality to Damon's fantasy
Speaker 1: of what the club could be, the sexual exploration and
Speaker 1: adventure it could offer to its members. But as time
Speaker 1: went on, wealth, power and status became inseparable from Sanctum's identity,
Speaker 1: and that further blurred the boundaries of consent, of what's
Speaker 1: ethical and what's too far. And Damon himself was blinded
Speaker 1: by all the shiny things, whether it was the money,
Speaker 1: the models, or the celebs jizzing all over his living room.
Speaker 2: But at that time, I think that I wanted to
Speaker 2: be this important guy. I think there was a part
Speaker 2: of me that was a very ego centric part of
Speaker 2: me that wanted to be something special. The more special
Speaker 2: the person was telling me how great I am, the
Speaker 2: better it felt. You know, a musician who I have
Speaker 2: been following for twenty years and I've been to their
Speaker 2: show and you know, and I've always dreamed of meeting
Speaker 2: is in my home, you know, And he goes like,
Speaker 2: you know, You're one of the coolest motherfuckers I've ever
Speaker 2: met in my life. It's like, holy fuck, I must
Speaker 2: be a cool motherfucker. And so I guess part of
Speaker 2: the price point it was all feeding into that.
Speaker 1: Damon surrounded himself with all of these fancy people and
Speaker 1: he wanted to be like them, and in a way
Speaker 1: he was. He achieved the wealth and status that he
Speaker 1: had been seeking. He was someone the one percent wanted
Speaker 1: to know, but it wasn't necessarily fulfilling.
Speaker 2: It was a very interesting truth for me, which was
Speaker 2: that I was both in it and not in it.
Speaker 2: I was both into the materialism and gaining this notoriety
Speaker 2: and making money at the same time that I was like,
Speaker 2: this is all bullshit and like what the fuck am
Speaker 2: I doing? That life is very empty and false. It's
Speaker 2: not based on a deep connection to people around me.
Speaker 2: It's not based on you know, me being like a
Speaker 2: really deep thinking, soulful person. Or I wanted to find
Speaker 2: a deep happiness and satisfaction and realized that it wasn't
Speaker 2: going to be found there.
Speaker 1: And ultimately, he was missing the things he valued most.
Speaker 2: In twenty seventeen, I woke up on New Year's Day
Speaker 2: and I was in my bed in the same dimension.
Speaker 2: I had a girl on either side of me. You know.
Speaker 2: I had my Aston Martin, and I had my Dakati,
Speaker 2: and I had tons of money and everything I could want.
Speaker 2: And I remember that moment when I just wanted to
Speaker 2: like blow my brains out. You know, It's like this
Speaker 2: is just like this is also fucking poiless.
Speaker 1: Next on Sanctum Unmasked.
Speaker 6: But I didn't realize that anything was wrong. Neither did he.
Speaker 6: You know, we just thought this is normal.
Speaker 2: There were many armed men, guns drawn, you know, and
Speaker 2: he starts fucking with me, putting a gun to my head,
Speaker 2: putting a gun in my mouth like it was scary.
Speaker 4: He just thought he was always above the law or
Speaker 4: above that kind of authority, and he made a lot
Speaker 4: of enemies there.
Speaker 1: Sanctum Unmasked is a production of School of Humans and
Speaker 1: iHeart Podcasts, hosted and written by me Carly Schortino. Etaly's
Speaker 1: Perez is our lead producer and story editor. Amelia Brock
Speaker 1: is our senior producer, sound design, scoring, mixing, and mastering
Speaker 1: by Chris Childs. Original music composed by Jesse Niswanger. Fact
Speaker 1: checking by Austin Thompson. Logo illustration by Linda McNeil Graham
Speaker 1: Gibson as our recording engineer. Recorded at iHeart Studios in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, California. Executive producers are Nick Stump, Jason English,
Speaker 1: Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, Elsie Crowley, and me Carly Schortino.
Speaker 1: If you're enjoying the show, help us get the word
Speaker 1: out be leaving a rating in your favorite podcast app.
Speaker 1: You can keep up with Damon on Instagram. He's at
Speaker 1: Father Damon. Tune in next week.