May 4, 2023 • 37 mins
Damon’s personal life is up in flames, but the club’s success is skyrocketing. Due to SNCTM’s wild popularity, Damon creates a more elite tier of Sanctum membership – called “Dominus” – which costs tens of thousands of dollars and involves a blood oath initiation ceremony. This brings a new level of wealth and status to the club – at least among the men. For women, their looks were their currency. And, as Damon finds out, money doesn’t mean happiness.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
School of Humans. Sanctum Unmasked is about a sex club
and describes various sex acts. Please use discretion where and
when you listen. Rich people can get the best of everything,
or maybe not the best, but at least the most expensive,
(00:26):
and that includes sex. The uber wealthy don't have to
tragically doomswipe on dating apps to find a stranger to
hook up with. They can have sex delivered to them
on a silver platter metaphorically speaking, although I'm sure that's
been done literally too, Or if they're so inclined, they
can hire a professional to curate a bespoke sexual experience
(00:46):
that plays out their wildest fantasies. And well, these are
the kind of people that Damon knew he wanted to
cater to. Remember back in our first episode, when he
was wandering the streets of Beverly Hills trying to think
what he could offer the super rich. Well, he managed
to do it. He found his depraved little niche. Now,
when we left you last, Damon's personal life was basically
(01:09):
up in flames. But as that was happening, the club's
success was skyrocketing. It was as if there was an
inverse relationship between the two. The worse his marriage with
Melissa grew, the more rich and successful he became. It's
like that quote from The devilwares Prada, when our King
Stanley Tucci says, let me know when your whole life
(01:30):
is up in smoke, that means it's time for a promotion.
The year that Damon and Melissa broke up, twenty sixteen,
Damon moved into the Sanctum mansion and began what would
be the club's most lucrative era, with people paying him
hundreds of thousands of dollars for a membership literally, and
all the success, the money, the proximity to celebrity, well,
(01:52):
it started to go to his.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Head at that time. I definitely wanted to create something
that was very elitist. I wanted to attract those types
of people. That definitely was part of the driving force
of Sanctum was like, I can be king of my
own little world here. I think that part of my
success must have been because I was that person.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Welcome to Sanctum unmasked, I'm your host, Carl schortinau So,
Sanctum was one of the hottest parties in town, and
like any good members only club, you had to apply
to get in, which of course makes the whole thing
more appealing. The club's popularity had surpassed even Damon's expectations,
(02:47):
and was now getting hundreds of applications for every event,
from which they'd select the most desirable hundred, so an
invite to the party was a hot commodity. Damon's social
media had turned into a constant stream of naked selfies
from girls begging him to pretty please let me into
the party, and as the club's overlord, he decided who
(03:08):
made the cut. He was essentially god of who's hot
and who's not. And it's no secret that Sanctum had
a type when it came to women.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
This gets tricky because of what, you know, what it
implies that we were only letting in beautiful girls or
whatever that means. What is beauty? And am I the
person was like the gatekeeper? And yeah, you know I was.
They would send in pictures and videos and most of
them were they weren't wearing clothes, and you know, they
really wanted to get into this party, and we chose
(03:38):
the ones that seemed like they were going to be
the most right for it, and generally those were the
ones who were super attractive. And you know, sometimes someone
would just be super sexy in their attitude and you
knew they would add something really special. So it wasn't
just purely looks, but I mean, yeah, it was based
a lot on that.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Basically, no fugly people unless they were super cool. Along
with sending photos of themselves, everyone who wanted into the
party had to fill out an application. It included questions
about your work, passions, sexual fantasies, what you could offer
to the Sanctum community. It essentially were like a super
(04:17):
inappropriate resume.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
And those answers were pretty telling. When someone would be
like you need me there, like, I wouldn't respond to
that person. There was so much ego involved from so
many of these people, obviously, and I didn't want like
a bunch of assholes in there. There were times when
I let them in because they were buying you know,
eight seven, eight thousand dollars tables, and I needed the
fucking money. But once I got to the point where
(04:40):
I didn't need the money I got, I sort of
got stricter and stricter with the kinds of men that
I would let in.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
And no assholes unless you were super rich. It's important
to note that the vast majority of clientele at Sanctum
were wealthy and white, and that definitely plays into the
dynamics at the club. I Though Damon says his intention
was to curate a positive, open environment, that wasn't always
the result. This may come as a surprise to some people,
(05:09):
but something about privilege can make people think they get
to act however the fuck they want.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
I mean, men would generally like thirties to you know,
mid fifties. Those guys in their fifties were the guys
who were paying the big membership fees, and so you know, three,
four or five of those guys, they would pay for
that whole party. I did let in some younger men,
and I had so many problems with guys in their twenties.
They would slap a girl's ass or something drunk, They
(05:39):
felt very entitled, They looked good, they had nice bodies,
and they were handsome, and I wanted some of that
energy for sure, But a lot of them were fucking idiots.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Yeah, I've dated a lot of those guys. Anyway, Anyone
who's into hosting, whether it's a casual dinner or a wedding,
knows that a party, it's only as good as it's guests.
We all know those people who just always get invited
to everything because they're super funny or generous, or they
bake the best cookies or whatever. Well, these rules also
(06:11):
apply to sex parties, minus the stuff about baked goods.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
I don't know if it's gonna sound weird enough, but
if I saw men that were like really pleasing women,
you know, they were eating pussy, they had big dicks,
they were fucking really good, I would invite them back.
I wanted those guys that were going to please women
because without those women, I had no parties. And if
it was just like older men that were rich and
supporting the event, the women would stop coming. I guess
(06:39):
in that were some of the top porn stars. I
mean guys with like, you know, fourteen inch fucking dicks,
and I would never meet them in the real world,
but they were at my party.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
I love when straight guys get all excited by other
guys dicks. I find it really sweet. Honestly, Damon clearly
wanted there to be something on the menu for all
of his guests, even if it meant promoting unrealistic boner standards. Okay,
by this point, you pervs are probably wondering how much
(07:09):
did Sanctum cost anyway? And is it in my budget? Well,
the answer to that was always changing. When Sanctum launched
back in twenty thirteen, a ticket cost one hundred bucks.
Memberships were fifteen hundred, which gave you access to a
live sex performance on the night, but the more successful
(07:29):
the club became, the more it charged. By twenty sixteen,
when Damon moved into the Sanctum mansion, admission to a
single party was twenty five hundred dollars for a single man,
two thousand dollars for a couple, and free for single women.
Tickets were upward of ten thousand dollars if you wanted
a table with bottle service. Yearly membership started at ten k,
(07:52):
which basically just meant you were pre paying for every
party that year, whether you went or not. But that
wasn't expensive enough for Damon's richest Hornius guests. It was
becoming clear to him that actually it seemed the more
he charged, the more attractive the memberships were. Human psychology
is weird like that, I guess. So Damon's like, Okay,
(08:15):
I'm just going to start experimenting with how much I
can charge before people tell me to go fuck myself.
So he comes up with the idea to create a
higher tier of membership called Dominus. Dominant members would pay
seventy five thousand dollars per year. Of course, he knew
he had to offer something special to make it worth
(08:35):
the money, and as someone who's always been obsessed with
secret societies, he comes up with this.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
I liked the idea of an initiation ritual of some kind.
I was reading some stuff on just a different kind
of tribal societies initiating young men into the tribes, and
it was like a coming of age thing where you
had to go from a boy to a man. And
so there was something about that that I liked because
I didn't experience any kind of ceremony that would take
(09:03):
me from boyhood to manhood. And so I just came
up with this thing.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
This thing being a blood oath ceremony. Yes, it is
what it sounds like. Okay, let me break this down.
When someone bought a Dominant membership, Damian would host a
ritual initiation at either the Sanctum mansion or the member's home.
There was a lot of pomp and circumstance, like really
(09:30):
leaning into the whole secret society thing. There were robes,
there was candles, there was probably some chanting, and the
member would be given a lapel pin to wear at
the parties to advertise their special dominant status.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
And I did it in a way that was definitely
felt ceremonial. You know. I had these cool leather snake
skin bound boxes with these snake sculptures on top, and
you'd open the box and inside you would find like
your lapel pin, and those who were selling for a lot,
you know, an incredibly I mean, that's a huge sum
of money.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
For the ceremony. The inductee would sit on the bed
with two performers from the club. One performer would whisper
a secret password in his ear that could be used
to get backstage access at the parties, so like basically
you could hang out in the green room and watch
the performers fluff themselves before live sex shows.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
For instance, I honestly used to crack up with the
other performers the fact that they wouldn't get people to
pay for this, because it honestly felt like a waste
of money to me.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
That's Ambros again, Sanctum's longtime performer he participated in a
lot of dominant ceremonies. Remember he's a trans man, but
back when he was working at Sanctum was still presenting
as fem Here he is remembering how these dominant ceremonies
went down.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
We don't get a drink, have some brief small talk
real quick, and then Damon would break out his little
ornamental like box thingy he had, and he had this
like crafted up like contract that was like on off
white paper. It looks like those projects I did in
(11:09):
elementary school.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
We'd have to teaseta in the paper.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
Here's this official Sanctum scroll. He'd say some words and
read the fucking contract, singing like part of their like
phrase was like in Latin and shit.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
So what did this fancy scroll say anyways?
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Cause I'm even remember it, but it was like, you know,
you're now initiated to the inner Sanctum, and you're now
part of this secretive society, and we've got this password
to get into this private room or whatever.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
Deep Now, I know what you're thinking, where's the blood
in this so called blood oat ceremony? Well, chill out,
I'm getting there after the break. Okay, back to the
blood ritual stuff. After the whole scroll part was over,
it was finally time for the member to sign the contract.
(12:09):
Now Damon would produce a spear from his robe and
slice the hand of the new member. They would then
bleed out onto the scroll and drink their own blood
from a chalice. Then they'd kneel before Damon, declaring him
the Almighty sex Club God. Lol, just kidding. I'll just
(12:30):
let Damon explain it.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
What we did was, and this is going to sort
of demystify it in a sense. But I went to
like write eight, and I bought those testing kits when
you have diabetes with the little needle things, and the
needle would pop out of the little plastic thing and
it would prick your finger, and then if you squeeze
your finger, you know, you can get a little bit
of blood, not much, but enough blood to put it
on to a contract. At the bottom of the page
there was a lion head, and the idea is that
(12:54):
you would take the blood from your finger and you'd
put it on the lion head. And that was like
part of the initiation.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Oh right, that sounds more sanitary but less fun. Now,
this was so obviously kind of funny, like it's essentially
a bunch of middle aged men LARPing some serious game
of throne shit. But there is something I really admire
about Damon for his ability to just lean into the
cheesy and the ridiculous with true sincerity. And people really
(13:24):
responded to this, Like a ton of people bought these
Dominant memberships. Yet again, this crazy idea was working.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
Honestly, sometimes felt like it is my life, Like it
was very surreal. They had members that were like actors, comedians,
sports players, musicians, like I met some people I never
thought I would meet in my entire life, and it
was always so weird as buck to me because they
(13:53):
would be like, yeah, so it would be kind of
cool someday if like after the end of civilization they
like find this box the Dominant Sanctum members agreements and
then they like genetically like use their blood and like
recreate them. And I was like, what excuse me, have
(14:18):
you even having too.
Speaker 4 (14:19):
Much k.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
There are a couple like things I saved from that time,
and some of it is the blood of some of
these huge celebrities. I just figured like at some point
in their future, you know, this would be some kind
of folklore like once they're dead. These things go in
a museum or something like, this is the blood of
blah blah blah.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
For the record, that's my favorite thing Damon's ever said.
I love the idea that he still has a box
of glamorous celebrity blood covered in dust somewhere in his attic.
You never know when that sort of thing might come
in handy. Oh, but there is one more vital part
of the initiation.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
I mean, quite honestly, the person who was being initiated
would have a threesome.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
Okay, now those high prices are making more sense, Like,
I don't care if you're bezos rich. Who the hell
pay seventy five thousand dollars for a lapel pin and
a fingerprick?
Speaker 3 (15:14):
It was implied that we were like in offering to
the new member to spend time with us both. It
wasn't said outwardly like you're gonna have a threesome with them,
that this person you need to make them come, but
you could tell that was like what was expected of you.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
Now the way Ambrose just described the language Sanctum used
in these ceremonies, that the performers would quote spend time
with its members. That is essentially the loophole of sex work. Obviously,
it's illegal to buy and sell sex virtually everywhere in
the US. So for instance, if you go to a
sex worker's website, they don't list the price of a blowjob.
(15:49):
They list the price of an hour of their time,
and then within that time, consenting adults can do whatever
they want, and coincidentally, that might include a blowjob. And
when it came to this whole initiation thing, Damon said,
it was never hard to find performers who were down
to be part of these ceremonies.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
I would say, like, you know, we're doing a dominant ceremony.
This is who it's with, who wants to do it.
I had plenty of performers who were more than happy
to have a threesome with one of the biggest rock
stars in the world, you know, and I would pay
them for the ceremony. You know. It was a really
fine line I was walking. And it's hard for me
to speak of it because I think there probably some
(16:30):
legal implications in all of it, But like in the
way that I arranged things, and in the culture of
what I was doing, and in the way that we
spoke to each other about things, it was like this,
you know you're gonna get paid to do this dominant ceremony.
Whatever you decide to do is up to you, and
I would make that crystal clear that sex was never expected.
(16:50):
I'm telling you now, do not fuck anyone unless you
want to fuck that. This is your choice. Then whatever
happened between the three of them was between them. I
didn't need to know this was for them now. Of course, afterwards,
I would say so, what happened to the girls?
Speaker 1 (17:05):
You know?
Speaker 2 (17:06):
They would tell me everything.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
And apparently they often provided some great gossip.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
There was one where the gentleman requested a strap on
and afterwards I say, so, how you know, how was it?
Speaker 1 (17:18):
They're always it was great.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
He had the best time and he loved the experience.
And I was like, so which one you know? Did
you fuck? Hurt it? And they were like no, he
had me put it on and I fucked him and
I was.
Speaker 5 (17:32):
Like, oh, you know.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Like, oh wow, that's incredible. I didn't even I just
didn't think that.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Remember this was back in twenty sixteen, before pegging was trending.
Since the dominant memberships were doing so well, Damon was like, Okay,
I guess i'll just roll with this, and in my opinion,
this is where stuff gets really crazy. So even the
rich have hierarchies. There's the wealthy, the super wealthy, and
(18:10):
the disgustingly wealthy. And if you're disgustingly wealthy, you don't
want to be mistaken for some tragic super wealthy person
Out in the regular, non masked orgy world. The rich
use signifiers like fancy cars or broken bags or whatever
to demonstrate their wealth. But at the parties, everyone's in
fancy tuxes or lingerie and most people are wearing masks,
(18:33):
so everyone's on an even playing field. But if you
had that special Dominus lapelpin, you could signify that you
were above other members. But what if you wanted something
even more important than a lapelpin.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
I was just always testing the water to see what
was possible at that point when I was charging seventy
five thousand yearly for dominance, being part of the hierarchy,
or showing off your status at saying, and became something
worth spending money on. It's hard to build a business
to that point where just wearing a lapelpin cost you
seventy five thousand dollars a year, but you know, that's
what Sanctum was. It was like it was this really
(19:12):
high end brand and this thing that people wanted to
identify with, and so they're willing to spend quite a
bit of money for that status.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
So he creates an even higher tier of members, the
Violet Key Benefactors or VKB. For sure, Damon only sold
two VKB memberships. The first was for three hundred and
fifty thousand dollars, the second was for four hundred and
twenty five thousand dollars, nearly half a fucking million dollars.
(19:45):
And for this you get legit, all you get is
a ring.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
It's purely status. I mean, is there really that much
of a difference between like the very top end five
point fifty Mercedes leather interior that you can buy. I mean,
those cars are amazing. I was just gonna say I
actually drive one once. It's just totally bragging, but I
do drive one. It's a fucking great car. A Rolls
Royce is four times that would I rather be driving
(20:13):
in a Rolls Royce. Luckily, I don't give a fuck,
but many, many, many people do. This is our society,
you know, we want to show off our wealth. We're
all a bunch of fucking idiots, and we spend way
too much money on products that are total bullshit because
we want to be special. And I know that, and
I knew that, and I still know it. So Sanctum
(20:34):
was born out of that, and I just played it
up and guess what it works.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
So before we talked about how being rich or super
hot was basically your only way into Sanctum, and this
created a gen discrepancy at Sanctum. Couples and men paid
to get in, but single women got in for free.
This isn't a new idea, Hello, ladies nights. Lots of
bars and nightclubs charge men at cover while letting women
(21:13):
in either for cheaper or free. The difference here is
that instead of men paying twenty bucks for wing night
at a sports bar at Sanctum, men were paying thousands
of dollars for a ticket. So the difference is pretty glaring.
Remember doctor Jeana Rangalova, the NYU Professor of Human Sexuality.
We talked to her last episode about the potential benefits
(21:35):
of sex parties for couples. Well In twenty fifteen, doctor
Jana and sex researcher Brooke Wells surveyed thirteen hundred people
across the US who had been to a sex party
in the previous year, and part of what they asked
participants was how much these parties cost, and there was
a very wide range from totally free at the low end,
(21:57):
some even being potlucks like bring your own food or
or bring your own dog food even interesting. At the
high end, parties generally cost a few hundred bucks, and
then there were a select few extremely high end parties
that cost into the thousands. The sex party survey also
found that gendered pricing, meaning that men pay more, is
(22:18):
actually pretty common. So why is that.
Speaker 6 (22:22):
The rationale for having gendered pricing is that there are
many more single men who are interested and willing to
go to these sex parties than there are single women.
Men also generally make more than women do, and it's
a way to incentivize women to come to these events,
and it's also to disincentivize to many men being present.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
Basically, hot young women are likely less desperate to sleep
with random strangers than most middle aged men are. It
sounds gender essentialist, but like it's true. Seriously, on average,
even couples get cheaper tickets than a single dude at
a sex party. But how does the system of men
paying a ton and women paying nothing affect the dynamics
(23:12):
of the party Once you're inside.
Speaker 6 (23:15):
Gendered pricing creates a very uneven gender dynamic. What you
often end up with are these fairly transactional type of
dynamics where a lot of the people present are very
wealthy men who are usually older, who are maybe not
that attractive physically, not amazing lovers, you know, they're not
(23:37):
the people that you might really want to fuck when
you go to a sex party, but they have the
money to afford. And then you have a lot of
usually younger women who don't have the means, but they
are very beautiful.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
Once she says it, it seems kind of obvious. But
it's not just a case of hot girls being like, ugh,
there's no que guys here. It's just a bunch of
old losers who look vaguely like my dad. It's more
complicated than that.
Speaker 6 (24:07):
When you're bringing in these people from very different socioeconomic
strata together, but in that kind of transactional way, that's
when you create a lot of possibilities for abuse, for
non consensual behavior, or maybe consensual on the surface but
(24:28):
not wanted behavior. You know, people kind of doing this
because there's self pressuring into well, I'm already here, you know,
I'm here at this very luxurious kind of kind of environment.
I got in for free. Well maybe that means I
do have to have sex with some of these guys
that I don't actually want to have sex with, and
I find that problematic.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
After hearing all of this, I wanted to talk to
a woman who went to Sanctum as a guest to
see how these dynamics felt in person. Leah is an
actress in her thirties. She's been Sanctum many times over
the past handful of years and always got in for free,
and she had fun. I mean, she obviously kept going back,
but she also acknowledges that the experience could feel a
(25:11):
little complicated.
Speaker 7 (25:13):
I understand that Sanctum has a very specific niche and
they're catering to a demographic that is more of the
elite Hollywood glamorous vibe. And that's great, because listen, we
all want to go into spaces where we feel like
we're an eyes wide shut and it's fancy and pre
champagne and all of that. But what was interesting to
(25:34):
me being a guest where I don't have to pay,
and knowing that there are people that have paid, and
that there is a gender difference between that creates an
imbalance of power. What is it about me that is
being monetized? Because you have to be aware that if
you're there for free, nothing is for free, and so
(25:55):
therefore you're part of the experience.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
As the saying goes, there's no such thing as a
free orgy. So unless you've been living in a black hole,
you've probably been privy to one or a thousand conversations
over the past few years about how consent can be
complicated when one person has more power than another. In
Sanctum's case, do you remember when Damon was talking about
(26:20):
how he'd sometimes rent mansions from annoying rich guys who
then feel entitled to act like douchebags at the party
because they own the place. Well, Leah had this experience firsthand.
Speaker 7 (26:33):
I did have one instance where I was grabbed by
the caller, this older man who actually owned the mansion
that we were having the event at. He pulled me
by the caller and was just like, Oh, what is
this for? What do I get to do.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
To you with this?
Speaker 7 (26:49):
It made me feel like he thought he had some
sort of permission to do that just because he owned
the house, and it was it was a little dehuman.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
I feel like this is the sex party equivalent of
she was asking for it. It's instances like this that
left some women at Sanctum feeling like, wait, am I
a guest at this party or am I the party?
Speaker 7 (27:15):
I mean, you definitely feel commodified, objectified in a different way.
Like going to those events. I've definitely felt that that
male gaze where you know you're being watched, You know
that someone is looking for a specific experience and that
(27:37):
you might be part of that for them. And I
think that you can feel that way whether you go
to a club or Sanctum or even the grocery store.
But it definitely heightens the stakes when there is that
integrated imbalance of power.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
It's true most women have felt like this at some
point in their lives. But talking about all this stuff objectification, power, gender,
it's all very nuanced now. It's no great revelation that
power dynamics can also be really hot. That's why one
of the most common sexual fantasies ever is professor student
(28:17):
Objectification is often talked about like it's universally bad. But
in my opinion, there's a time and a place for
everything within the context of a relationship or a hookup
with someone who respects you. Being treated like a sex
toy can sometimes be a turn on, you know, but
these things can be truly awful if they're happening without
(28:38):
your consent. Objectification was something that Sanctum was certainly not
afraid to explore. For instance, at some point Sanctums started
doing live auctions of women at the party, and yes,
it's exactly what it sounds like. Basically, a handful of
Sanctums performers would get in a line and an auctionaire
(29:02):
would list their stats, high measurements, age, stuff like that.
He'd then have them do a little spin and then
the men would start doing their bidding. If you one,
their performer would quote hang out with you for the evening.
And again, exactly what hanging out means is in the
eye of the beholder. Claudia, a long time performer at Sanctum,
(29:24):
was one of the women who was auctioned off. Here's
how she remembers it.
Speaker 5 (29:29):
Everybody's in masks, so you can't really you can't really
see who's bidding on you And you can't really see
who the girls are either, And yeah, they would just
stand up there, you know, butt naked, do their little
twirl and you know, guys would start bidding. The girl
would hang out either like lightly massage them or something
and just basically be like there, I guess they're a
little slave for the evening.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
For lack of better words. Now, Demon was aware that
the exploration of this fantasy was complicated, and because of that,
Sanctum was actually donating it's portion of the auctions proceeds
to an organization called the Polaris Project that helps to
fight human trafficking. After watching a couple auctions, Claudia told
Damon she wanted in. Some of these women were being
(30:12):
sold for upwards of ten thousand dollars and getting to
keep most of the money. It seemed worth it, even exciting,
so she went for it. It was interesting, I'll say
that much.
Speaker 5 (30:24):
The couple times that I did do the auction, all
like three four times, I met very interesting people. There
were a lot of celebrities and stuff that I recognized
a lot of very influential people. It's like, how else
are you going to have the opportunity to speak to
this person, but she.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
Liked it beyond just the opportunity to meet celebs. It
also felt transgressive in a way that was kind of thrilling.
Speaker 5 (30:51):
I feel it like, if you break past what we've
been taught about sex and sexuality and you know, don't
talk about that, don't dress like that, don't explore that,
I guess, exploring the taboo, right, exploring the things that
most people are so terrified of. And I don't understand why.
I feel like if we, as just humans just broke
(31:12):
past that stupid barrier that society placed.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
On this, you would look at everything differently.
Speaker 5 (31:18):
You know, relationships, you know, yourself, like your confidence, Like
I think my confidence grew and developed at these things
and as like a full blown adult now, I guess,
like I'm so thankful for that now.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
Part of what's exciting about sexual spaces is that we're
all ideally giving ourselves and each other permission to explore
the things that in the regular world would be quote
unquote inappropriate, to examine our so called darker impulses, and
what feels degrading to one person might feel empowering to
somebody else, and these auctions are a perfect example of that.
(31:55):
But because there's oas a butt, these things can get
complicated when there's money and power were involved. Melissa was
witnessed to some of these auctions and she did not
feel good about them, particularly because a lot of the
women participating were very young.
Speaker 4 (32:10):
That is what was the most extreme to me was
the auctioning off of the girls. It's like or not
auctioning cattle like they were numbered And that's not something
that I stand with today at all. If you're auctioning
something off, that means that someone bought you, that's someone
paid for you.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
So now what does that mean? Do they own you? Then?
Speaker 8 (32:34):
What does that mean? Can they do whatever they want
to you? So it's like becomes this ripple and that
to me was dangerous. That's kind of where that's that's
where it's got scary.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
It's just complicated because I'm like, I want these women
to make decisions for themselves. That to me is a
situation where I feel like these men are super powerful.
You have to be a really strong, good boundaries person
to advocate for yourself.
Speaker 8 (33:00):
Who is at eighteen, nineteen twenty, I don't know a lot.
I couldn't even really set healthy boundaries when I was
that age. That's what makes it so tricky, and that's
what makes it so complicated, and that's what to.
Speaker 4 (33:13):
Me was so frightening about that aspect of the club.
Speaker 1 (33:22):
Between running a fast growing business and keeping hundreds of
naked people safe, things were bound to get a little messy. Sure,
there was an almost dough wide quality to Damon's fantasy
of what the club could be, the sexual exploration and
adventure it could offer to its members. But as time
went on, wealth, power and status became inseparable from Sanctum's identity,
(33:46):
and that further blurred the boundaries of consent, of what's
ethical and what's too far. And Damon himself was blinded
by all the shiny things, whether it was the money,
the models, or the celebs jizzing all over his living room.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
But at that time, I think that I wanted to
be this important guy. I think there was a part
of me that was a very ego centric part of
me that wanted to be something special. The more special
the person was telling me how great I am, the
better it felt. You know, a musician who I have
(34:22):
been following for twenty years and I've been to their
show and you know, and I've always dreamed of meeting
is in my home, you know, And he goes like,
you know, You're one of the coolest motherfuckers I've ever
met in my life. It's like, holy fuck, I must
be a cool motherfucker. And so I guess part of
the price point it was all feeding into that.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
Damon surrounded himself with all of these fancy people and
he wanted to be like them, and in a way
he was. He achieved the wealth and status that he
had been seeking. He was someone the one percent wanted
to know, but it wasn't necessarily fulfilling.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
It was a very interesting truth for me, which was
that I was both in it and not in it.
I was both into the materialism and gaining this notoriety
and making money at the same time that I was like,
this is all bullshit and like what the fuck am
I doing? That life is very empty and false. It's
(35:23):
not based on a deep connection to people around me.
It's not based on you know, me being like a
really deep thinking, soulful person. Or I wanted to find
a deep happiness and satisfaction and realized that it wasn't
going to be found there.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
And ultimately, he was missing the things he valued most.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
In twenty seventeen, I woke up on New Year's Day
and I was in my bed in the same dimension.
I had a girl on either side of me. You know.
I had my Aston Martin, and I had my Dakati,
and I had tons of money and everything I could want.
And I remember that moment when I just wanted to
like blow my brains out. You know, It's like this
is just like this is also fucking poiless.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
Next on Sanctum Unmasked.
Speaker 6 (36:20):
But I didn't realize that anything was wrong. Neither did he.
You know, we just thought this is normal.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
There were many armed men, guns drawn, you know, and
he starts fucking with me, putting a gun to my head,
putting a gun in my mouth like it was scary.
Speaker 4 (36:39):
He just thought he was always above the law or
above that kind of authority, and he made a lot
of enemies there.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
Sanctum Unmasked is a production of School of Humans and
iHeart Podcasts, hosted and written by me Carly Schortino. Etaly's
Perez is our lead producer and story editor. Amelia Brock
is our senior producer, sound design, scoring, mixing, and mastering
by Chris Childs. Original music composed by Jesse Niswanger. Fact
checking by Austin Thompson. Logo illustration by Linda McNeil Graham
(37:14):
Gibson as our recording engineer. Recorded at iHeart Studios in
Los Angeles, California. Executive producers are Nick Stump, Jason English,
Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, Elsie Crowley, and me Carly Schortino.
If you're enjoying the show, help us get the word
out be leaving a rating in your favorite podcast app.
You can keep up with Damon on Instagram. He's at
Father Damon. Tune in next week.
School of Humans. Sanctum Unmasked is about a sex club
and describes various sex acts. Please use discretion where and
when you listen. Rich people can get the best of everything,
or maybe not the best, but at least the most expensive,
(00:26):
and that includes sex. The uber wealthy don't have to
tragically doomswipe on dating apps to find a stranger to
hook up with. They can have sex delivered to them
on a silver platter metaphorically speaking, although I'm sure that's
been done literally too, Or if they're so inclined, they
can hire a professional to curate a bespoke sexual experience
(00:46):
that plays out their wildest fantasies. And well, these are
the kind of people that Damon knew he wanted to
cater to. Remember back in our first episode, when he
was wandering the streets of Beverly Hills trying to think
what he could offer the super rich. Well, he managed
to do it. He found his depraved little niche. Now,
when we left you last, Damon's personal life was basically
(01:09):
up in flames. But as that was happening, the club's
success was skyrocketing. It was as if there was an
inverse relationship between the two. The worse his marriage with
Melissa grew, the more rich and successful he became. It's
like that quote from The devilwares Prada, when our King
Stanley Tucci says, let me know when your whole life
(01:30):
is up in smoke, that means it's time for a promotion.
The year that Damon and Melissa broke up, twenty sixteen,
Damon moved into the Sanctum mansion and began what would
be the club's most lucrative era, with people paying him
hundreds of thousands of dollars for a membership literally, and
all the success, the money, the proximity to celebrity, well,
(01:52):
it started to go to his.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Head at that time. I definitely wanted to create something
that was very elitist. I wanted to attract those types
of people. That definitely was part of the driving force
of Sanctum was like, I can be king of my
own little world here. I think that part of my
success must have been because I was that person.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Welcome to Sanctum unmasked, I'm your host, Carl schortinau So,
Sanctum was one of the hottest parties in town, and
like any good members only club, you had to apply
to get in, which of course makes the whole thing
more appealing. The club's popularity had surpassed even Damon's expectations,
(02:47):
and was now getting hundreds of applications for every event,
from which they'd select the most desirable hundred, so an
invite to the party was a hot commodity. Damon's social
media had turned into a constant stream of naked selfies
from girls begging him to pretty please let me into
the party, and as the club's overlord, he decided who
(03:08):
made the cut. He was essentially god of who's hot
and who's not. And it's no secret that Sanctum had
a type when it came to women.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
This gets tricky because of what, you know, what it
implies that we were only letting in beautiful girls or
whatever that means. What is beauty? And am I the
person was like the gatekeeper? And yeah, you know I was.
They would send in pictures and videos and most of
them were they weren't wearing clothes, and you know, they
really wanted to get into this party, and we chose
(03:38):
the ones that seemed like they were going to be
the most right for it, and generally those were the
ones who were super attractive. And you know, sometimes someone
would just be super sexy in their attitude and you
knew they would add something really special. So it wasn't
just purely looks, but I mean, yeah, it was based
a lot on that.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Basically, no fugly people unless they were super cool. Along
with sending photos of themselves, everyone who wanted into the
party had to fill out an application. It included questions
about your work, passions, sexual fantasies, what you could offer
to the Sanctum community. It essentially were like a super
(04:17):
inappropriate resume.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
And those answers were pretty telling. When someone would be
like you need me there, like, I wouldn't respond to
that person. There was so much ego involved from so
many of these people, obviously, and I didn't want like
a bunch of assholes in there. There were times when
I let them in because they were buying you know,
eight seven, eight thousand dollars tables, and I needed the
fucking money. But once I got to the point where
(04:40):
I didn't need the money I got, I sort of
got stricter and stricter with the kinds of men that
I would let in.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
And no assholes unless you were super rich. It's important
to note that the vast majority of clientele at Sanctum
were wealthy and white, and that definitely plays into the
dynamics at the club. I Though Damon says his intention
was to curate a positive, open environment, that wasn't always
the result. This may come as a surprise to some people,
(05:09):
but something about privilege can make people think they get
to act however the fuck they want.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
I mean, men would generally like thirties to you know,
mid fifties. Those guys in their fifties were the guys
who were paying the big membership fees, and so you know, three,
four or five of those guys, they would pay for
that whole party. I did let in some younger men,
and I had so many problems with guys in their twenties.
They would slap a girl's ass or something drunk, They
(05:39):
felt very entitled, They looked good, they had nice bodies,
and they were handsome, and I wanted some of that
energy for sure, But a lot of them were fucking idiots.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Yeah, I've dated a lot of those guys. Anyway, Anyone
who's into hosting, whether it's a casual dinner or a wedding,
knows that a party, it's only as good as it's guests.
We all know those people who just always get invited
to everything because they're super funny or generous, or they
bake the best cookies or whatever. Well, these rules also
(06:11):
apply to sex parties, minus the stuff about baked goods.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
I don't know if it's gonna sound weird enough, but
if I saw men that were like really pleasing women,
you know, they were eating pussy, they had big dicks,
they were fucking really good, I would invite them back.
I wanted those guys that were going to please women
because without those women, I had no parties. And if
it was just like older men that were rich and
supporting the event, the women would stop coming. I guess
(06:39):
in that were some of the top porn stars. I
mean guys with like, you know, fourteen inch fucking dicks,
and I would never meet them in the real world,
but they were at my party.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
I love when straight guys get all excited by other
guys dicks. I find it really sweet. Honestly, Damon clearly
wanted there to be something on the menu for all
of his guests, even if it meant promoting unrealistic boner standards. Okay,
by this point, you pervs are probably wondering how much
(07:09):
did Sanctum cost anyway? And is it in my budget? Well,
the answer to that was always changing. When Sanctum launched
back in twenty thirteen, a ticket cost one hundred bucks.
Memberships were fifteen hundred, which gave you access to a
live sex performance on the night, but the more successful
(07:29):
the club became, the more it charged. By twenty sixteen,
when Damon moved into the Sanctum mansion, admission to a
single party was twenty five hundred dollars for a single man,
two thousand dollars for a couple, and free for single women.
Tickets were upward of ten thousand dollars if you wanted
a table with bottle service. Yearly membership started at ten k,
(07:52):
which basically just meant you were pre paying for every
party that year, whether you went or not. But that
wasn't expensive enough for Damon's richest Hornius guests. It was
becoming clear to him that actually it seemed the more
he charged, the more attractive the memberships were. Human psychology
is weird like that, I guess. So Damon's like, Okay,
(08:15):
I'm just going to start experimenting with how much I
can charge before people tell me to go fuck myself.
So he comes up with the idea to create a
higher tier of membership called Dominus. Dominant members would pay
seventy five thousand dollars per year. Of course, he knew
he had to offer something special to make it worth
(08:35):
the money, and as someone who's always been obsessed with
secret societies, he comes up with this.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
I liked the idea of an initiation ritual of some kind.
I was reading some stuff on just a different kind
of tribal societies initiating young men into the tribes, and
it was like a coming of age thing where you
had to go from a boy to a man. And
so there was something about that that I liked because
I didn't experience any kind of ceremony that would take
(09:03):
me from boyhood to manhood. And so I just came
up with this thing.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
This thing being a blood oath ceremony. Yes, it is
what it sounds like. Okay, let me break this down.
When someone bought a Dominant membership, Damian would host a
ritual initiation at either the Sanctum mansion or the member's home.
There was a lot of pomp and circumstance, like really
(09:30):
leaning into the whole secret society thing. There were robes,
there was candles, there was probably some chanting, and the
member would be given a lapel pin to wear at
the parties to advertise their special dominant status.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
And I did it in a way that was definitely
felt ceremonial. You know. I had these cool leather snake
skin bound boxes with these snake sculptures on top, and
you'd open the box and inside you would find like
your lapel pin, and those who were selling for a lot,
you know, an incredibly I mean, that's a huge sum
of money.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
For the ceremony. The inductee would sit on the bed
with two performers from the club. One performer would whisper
a secret password in his ear that could be used
to get backstage access at the parties, so like basically
you could hang out in the green room and watch
the performers fluff themselves before live sex shows.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
For instance, I honestly used to crack up with the
other performers the fact that they wouldn't get people to
pay for this, because it honestly felt like a waste
of money to me.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
That's Ambros again, Sanctum's longtime performer he participated in a
lot of dominant ceremonies. Remember he's a trans man, but
back when he was working at Sanctum was still presenting
as fem Here he is remembering how these dominant ceremonies
went down.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
We don't get a drink, have some brief small talk
real quick, and then Damon would break out his little
ornamental like box thingy he had, and he had this
like crafted up like contract that was like on off
white paper. It looks like those projects I did in
(11:09):
elementary school.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
We'd have to teaseta in the paper.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
Here's this official Sanctum scroll. He'd say some words and
read the fucking contract, singing like part of their like
phrase was like in Latin and shit.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
So what did this fancy scroll say anyways?
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Cause I'm even remember it, but it was like, you know,
you're now initiated to the inner Sanctum, and you're now
part of this secretive society, and we've got this password
to get into this private room or whatever.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
Deep Now, I know what you're thinking, where's the blood
in this so called blood oat ceremony? Well, chill out,
I'm getting there after the break. Okay, back to the
blood ritual stuff. After the whole scroll part was over,
it was finally time for the member to sign the contract.
(12:09):
Now Damon would produce a spear from his robe and
slice the hand of the new member. They would then
bleed out onto the scroll and drink their own blood
from a chalice. Then they'd kneel before Damon, declaring him
the Almighty sex Club God. Lol, just kidding. I'll just
(12:30):
let Damon explain it.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
What we did was, and this is going to sort
of demystify it in a sense. But I went to
like write eight, and I bought those testing kits when
you have diabetes with the little needle things, and the
needle would pop out of the little plastic thing and
it would prick your finger, and then if you squeeze
your finger, you know, you can get a little bit
of blood, not much, but enough blood to put it
on to a contract. At the bottom of the page
there was a lion head, and the idea is that
(12:54):
you would take the blood from your finger and you'd
put it on the lion head. And that was like
part of the initiation.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Oh right, that sounds more sanitary but less fun. Now,
this was so obviously kind of funny, like it's essentially
a bunch of middle aged men LARPing some serious game
of throne shit. But there is something I really admire
about Damon for his ability to just lean into the
cheesy and the ridiculous with true sincerity. And people really
(13:24):
responded to this, Like a ton of people bought these
Dominant memberships. Yet again, this crazy idea was working.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
Honestly, sometimes felt like it is my life, Like it
was very surreal. They had members that were like actors, comedians,
sports players, musicians, like I met some people I never
thought I would meet in my entire life, and it
was always so weird as buck to me because they
(13:53):
would be like, yeah, so it would be kind of
cool someday if like after the end of civilization they
like find this box the Dominant Sanctum members agreements and
then they like genetically like use their blood and like
recreate them. And I was like, what excuse me, have
(14:18):
you even having too.
Speaker 4 (14:19):
Much k.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
There are a couple like things I saved from that time,
and some of it is the blood of some of
these huge celebrities. I just figured like at some point
in their future, you know, this would be some kind
of folklore like once they're dead. These things go in
a museum or something like, this is the blood of
blah blah blah.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
For the record, that's my favorite thing Damon's ever said.
I love the idea that he still has a box
of glamorous celebrity blood covered in dust somewhere in his attic.
You never know when that sort of thing might come
in handy. Oh, but there is one more vital part
of the initiation.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
I mean, quite honestly, the person who was being initiated
would have a threesome.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
Okay, now those high prices are making more sense, Like,
I don't care if you're bezos rich. Who the hell
pay seventy five thousand dollars for a lapel pin and
a fingerprick?
Speaker 3 (15:14):
It was implied that we were like in offering to
the new member to spend time with us both. It
wasn't said outwardly like you're gonna have a threesome with them,
that this person you need to make them come, but
you could tell that was like what was expected of you.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
Now the way Ambrose just described the language Sanctum used
in these ceremonies, that the performers would quote spend time
with its members. That is essentially the loophole of sex work. Obviously,
it's illegal to buy and sell sex virtually everywhere in
the US. So for instance, if you go to a
sex worker's website, they don't list the price of a blowjob.
(15:49):
They list the price of an hour of their time,
and then within that time, consenting adults can do whatever
they want, and coincidentally, that might include a blowjob. And
when it came to this whole initiation thing, Damon said,
it was never hard to find performers who were down
to be part of these ceremonies.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
I would say, like, you know, we're doing a dominant ceremony.
This is who it's with, who wants to do it.
I had plenty of performers who were more than happy
to have a threesome with one of the biggest rock
stars in the world, you know, and I would pay
them for the ceremony. You know. It was a really
fine line I was walking. And it's hard for me
to speak of it because I think there probably some
(16:30):
legal implications in all of it, But like in the
way that I arranged things, and in the culture of
what I was doing, and in the way that we
spoke to each other about things, it was like this,
you know you're gonna get paid to do this dominant ceremony.
Whatever you decide to do is up to you, and
I would make that crystal clear that sex was never expected.
(16:50):
I'm telling you now, do not fuck anyone unless you
want to fuck that. This is your choice. Then whatever
happened between the three of them was between them. I
didn't need to know this was for them now. Of course, afterwards,
I would say so, what happened to the girls?
Speaker 1 (17:05):
You know?
Speaker 2 (17:06):
They would tell me everything.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
And apparently they often provided some great gossip.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
There was one where the gentleman requested a strap on
and afterwards I say, so, how you know, how was it?
Speaker 1 (17:18):
They're always it was great.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
He had the best time and he loved the experience.
And I was like, so which one you know? Did
you fuck? Hurt it? And they were like no, he
had me put it on and I fucked him and
I was.
Speaker 5 (17:32):
Like, oh, you know.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Like, oh wow, that's incredible. I didn't even I just
didn't think that.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Remember this was back in twenty sixteen, before pegging was trending.
Since the dominant memberships were doing so well, Damon was like, Okay,
I guess i'll just roll with this, and in my opinion,
this is where stuff gets really crazy. So even the
rich have hierarchies. There's the wealthy, the super wealthy, and
(18:10):
the disgustingly wealthy. And if you're disgustingly wealthy, you don't
want to be mistaken for some tragic super wealthy person
Out in the regular, non masked orgy world. The rich
use signifiers like fancy cars or broken bags or whatever
to demonstrate their wealth. But at the parties, everyone's in
fancy tuxes or lingerie and most people are wearing masks,
(18:33):
so everyone's on an even playing field. But if you
had that special Dominus lapelpin, you could signify that you
were above other members. But what if you wanted something
even more important than a lapelpin.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
I was just always testing the water to see what
was possible at that point when I was charging seventy
five thousand yearly for dominance, being part of the hierarchy,
or showing off your status at saying, and became something
worth spending money on. It's hard to build a business
to that point where just wearing a lapelpin cost you
seventy five thousand dollars a year, but you know, that's
what Sanctum was. It was like it was this really
(19:12):
high end brand and this thing that people wanted to
identify with, and so they're willing to spend quite a
bit of money for that status.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
So he creates an even higher tier of members, the
Violet Key Benefactors or VKB. For sure, Damon only sold
two VKB memberships. The first was for three hundred and
fifty thousand dollars, the second was for four hundred and
twenty five thousand dollars, nearly half a fucking million dollars.
(19:45):
And for this you get legit, all you get is
a ring.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
It's purely status. I mean, is there really that much
of a difference between like the very top end five
point fifty Mercedes leather interior that you can buy. I mean,
those cars are amazing. I was just gonna say I
actually drive one once. It's just totally bragging, but I
do drive one. It's a fucking great car. A Rolls
Royce is four times that would I rather be driving
(20:13):
in a Rolls Royce. Luckily, I don't give a fuck,
but many, many, many people do. This is our society,
you know, we want to show off our wealth. We're
all a bunch of fucking idiots, and we spend way
too much money on products that are total bullshit because
we want to be special. And I know that, and
I knew that, and I still know it. So Sanctum
(20:34):
was born out of that, and I just played it
up and guess what it works.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
So before we talked about how being rich or super
hot was basically your only way into Sanctum, and this
created a gen discrepancy at Sanctum. Couples and men paid
to get in, but single women got in for free.
This isn't a new idea, Hello, ladies nights. Lots of
bars and nightclubs charge men at cover while letting women
(21:13):
in either for cheaper or free. The difference here is
that instead of men paying twenty bucks for wing night
at a sports bar at Sanctum, men were paying thousands
of dollars for a ticket. So the difference is pretty glaring.
Remember doctor Jeana Rangalova, the NYU Professor of Human Sexuality.
We talked to her last episode about the potential benefits
(21:35):
of sex parties for couples. Well In twenty fifteen, doctor
Jana and sex researcher Brooke Wells surveyed thirteen hundred people
across the US who had been to a sex party
in the previous year, and part of what they asked
participants was how much these parties cost, and there was
a very wide range from totally free at the low end,
(21:57):
some even being potlucks like bring your own food or
or bring your own dog food even interesting. At the
high end, parties generally cost a few hundred bucks, and
then there were a select few extremely high end parties
that cost into the thousands. The sex party survey also
found that gendered pricing, meaning that men pay more, is
(22:18):
actually pretty common. So why is that.
Speaker 6 (22:22):
The rationale for having gendered pricing is that there are
many more single men who are interested and willing to
go to these sex parties than there are single women.
Men also generally make more than women do, and it's
a way to incentivize women to come to these events,
and it's also to disincentivize to many men being present.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
Basically, hot young women are likely less desperate to sleep
with random strangers than most middle aged men are. It
sounds gender essentialist, but like it's true. Seriously, on average,
even couples get cheaper tickets than a single dude at
a sex party. But how does the system of men
paying a ton and women paying nothing affect the dynamics
(23:12):
of the party Once you're inside.
Speaker 6 (23:15):
Gendered pricing creates a very uneven gender dynamic. What you
often end up with are these fairly transactional type of
dynamics where a lot of the people present are very
wealthy men who are usually older, who are maybe not
that attractive physically, not amazing lovers, you know, they're not
(23:37):
the people that you might really want to fuck when
you go to a sex party, but they have the
money to afford. And then you have a lot of
usually younger women who don't have the means, but they
are very beautiful.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
Once she says it, it seems kind of obvious. But
it's not just a case of hot girls being like, ugh,
there's no que guys here. It's just a bunch of
old losers who look vaguely like my dad. It's more
complicated than that.
Speaker 6 (24:07):
When you're bringing in these people from very different socioeconomic
strata together, but in that kind of transactional way, that's
when you create a lot of possibilities for abuse, for
non consensual behavior, or maybe consensual on the surface but
(24:28):
not wanted behavior. You know, people kind of doing this
because there's self pressuring into well, I'm already here, you know,
I'm here at this very luxurious kind of kind of environment.
I got in for free. Well maybe that means I
do have to have sex with some of these guys
that I don't actually want to have sex with, and
I find that problematic.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
After hearing all of this, I wanted to talk to
a woman who went to Sanctum as a guest to
see how these dynamics felt in person. Leah is an
actress in her thirties. She's been Sanctum many times over
the past handful of years and always got in for free,
and she had fun. I mean, she obviously kept going back,
but she also acknowledges that the experience could feel a
(25:11):
little complicated.
Speaker 7 (25:13):
I understand that Sanctum has a very specific niche and
they're catering to a demographic that is more of the
elite Hollywood glamorous vibe. And that's great, because listen, we
all want to go into spaces where we feel like
we're an eyes wide shut and it's fancy and pre
champagne and all of that. But what was interesting to
(25:34):
me being a guest where I don't have to pay,
and knowing that there are people that have paid, and
that there is a gender difference between that creates an
imbalance of power. What is it about me that is
being monetized? Because you have to be aware that if
you're there for free, nothing is for free, and so
(25:55):
therefore you're part of the experience.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
As the saying goes, there's no such thing as a
free orgy. So unless you've been living in a black hole,
you've probably been privy to one or a thousand conversations
over the past few years about how consent can be
complicated when one person has more power than another. In
Sanctum's case, do you remember when Damon was talking about
(26:20):
how he'd sometimes rent mansions from annoying rich guys who
then feel entitled to act like douchebags at the party
because they own the place. Well, Leah had this experience firsthand.
Speaker 7 (26:33):
I did have one instance where I was grabbed by
the caller, this older man who actually owned the mansion
that we were having the event at. He pulled me
by the caller and was just like, Oh, what is
this for? What do I get to do.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
To you with this?
Speaker 7 (26:49):
It made me feel like he thought he had some
sort of permission to do that just because he owned
the house, and it was it was a little dehuman.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
I feel like this is the sex party equivalent of
she was asking for it. It's instances like this that
left some women at Sanctum feeling like, wait, am I
a guest at this party or am I the party?
Speaker 7 (27:15):
I mean, you definitely feel commodified, objectified in a different way.
Like going to those events. I've definitely felt that that
male gaze where you know you're being watched, You know
that someone is looking for a specific experience and that
(27:37):
you might be part of that for them. And I
think that you can feel that way whether you go
to a club or Sanctum or even the grocery store.
But it definitely heightens the stakes when there is that
integrated imbalance of power.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
It's true most women have felt like this at some
point in their lives. But talking about all this stuff objectification, power, gender,
it's all very nuanced now. It's no great revelation that
power dynamics can also be really hot. That's why one
of the most common sexual fantasies ever is professor student
(28:17):
Objectification is often talked about like it's universally bad. But
in my opinion, there's a time and a place for
everything within the context of a relationship or a hookup
with someone who respects you. Being treated like a sex
toy can sometimes be a turn on, you know, but
these things can be truly awful if they're happening without
(28:38):
your consent. Objectification was something that Sanctum was certainly not
afraid to explore. For instance, at some point Sanctums started
doing live auctions of women at the party, and yes,
it's exactly what it sounds like. Basically, a handful of
Sanctums performers would get in a line and an auctionaire
(29:02):
would list their stats, high measurements, age, stuff like that.
He'd then have them do a little spin and then
the men would start doing their bidding. If you one,
their performer would quote hang out with you for the evening.
And again, exactly what hanging out means is in the
eye of the beholder. Claudia, a long time performer at Sanctum,
(29:24):
was one of the women who was auctioned off. Here's
how she remembers it.
Speaker 5 (29:29):
Everybody's in masks, so you can't really you can't really
see who's bidding on you And you can't really see
who the girls are either, And yeah, they would just
stand up there, you know, butt naked, do their little
twirl and you know, guys would start bidding. The girl
would hang out either like lightly massage them or something
and just basically be like there, I guess they're a
little slave for the evening.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
For lack of better words. Now, Demon was aware that
the exploration of this fantasy was complicated, and because of that,
Sanctum was actually donating it's portion of the auctions proceeds
to an organization called the Polaris Project that helps to
fight human trafficking. After watching a couple auctions, Claudia told
Damon she wanted in. Some of these women were being
(30:12):
sold for upwards of ten thousand dollars and getting to
keep most of the money. It seemed worth it, even exciting,
so she went for it. It was interesting, I'll say
that much.
Speaker 5 (30:24):
The couple times that I did do the auction, all
like three four times, I met very interesting people. There
were a lot of celebrities and stuff that I recognized
a lot of very influential people. It's like, how else
are you going to have the opportunity to speak to
this person, but she.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
Liked it beyond just the opportunity to meet celebs. It
also felt transgressive in a way that was kind of thrilling.
Speaker 5 (30:51):
I feel it like, if you break past what we've
been taught about sex and sexuality and you know, don't
talk about that, don't dress like that, don't explore that,
I guess, exploring the taboo, right, exploring the things that
most people are so terrified of. And I don't understand why.
I feel like if we, as just humans just broke
(31:12):
past that stupid barrier that society placed.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
On this, you would look at everything differently.
Speaker 5 (31:18):
You know, relationships, you know, yourself, like your confidence, Like
I think my confidence grew and developed at these things
and as like a full blown adult now, I guess,
like I'm so thankful for that now.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
Part of what's exciting about sexual spaces is that we're
all ideally giving ourselves and each other permission to explore
the things that in the regular world would be quote
unquote inappropriate, to examine our so called darker impulses, and
what feels degrading to one person might feel empowering to
somebody else, and these auctions are a perfect example of that.
(31:55):
But because there's oas a butt, these things can get
complicated when there's money and power were involved. Melissa was
witnessed to some of these auctions and she did not
feel good about them, particularly because a lot of the
women participating were very young.
Speaker 4 (32:10):
That is what was the most extreme to me was
the auctioning off of the girls. It's like or not
auctioning cattle like they were numbered And that's not something
that I stand with today at all. If you're auctioning
something off, that means that someone bought you, that's someone
paid for you.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
So now what does that mean? Do they own you? Then?
Speaker 8 (32:34):
What does that mean? Can they do whatever they want
to you? So it's like becomes this ripple and that
to me was dangerous. That's kind of where that's that's
where it's got scary.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
It's just complicated because I'm like, I want these women
to make decisions for themselves. That to me is a
situation where I feel like these men are super powerful.
You have to be a really strong, good boundaries person
to advocate for yourself.
Speaker 8 (33:00):
Who is at eighteen, nineteen twenty, I don't know a lot.
I couldn't even really set healthy boundaries when I was
that age. That's what makes it so tricky, and that's
what makes it so complicated, and that's what to.
Speaker 4 (33:13):
Me was so frightening about that aspect of the club.
Speaker 1 (33:22):
Between running a fast growing business and keeping hundreds of
naked people safe, things were bound to get a little messy. Sure,
there was an almost dough wide quality to Damon's fantasy
of what the club could be, the sexual exploration and
adventure it could offer to its members. But as time
went on, wealth, power and status became inseparable from Sanctum's identity,
(33:46):
and that further blurred the boundaries of consent, of what's
ethical and what's too far. And Damon himself was blinded
by all the shiny things, whether it was the money,
the models, or the celebs jizzing all over his living room.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
But at that time, I think that I wanted to
be this important guy. I think there was a part
of me that was a very ego centric part of
me that wanted to be something special. The more special
the person was telling me how great I am, the
better it felt. You know, a musician who I have
(34:22):
been following for twenty years and I've been to their
show and you know, and I've always dreamed of meeting
is in my home, you know, And he goes like,
you know, You're one of the coolest motherfuckers I've ever
met in my life. It's like, holy fuck, I must
be a cool motherfucker. And so I guess part of
the price point it was all feeding into that.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
Damon surrounded himself with all of these fancy people and
he wanted to be like them, and in a way
he was. He achieved the wealth and status that he
had been seeking. He was someone the one percent wanted
to know, but it wasn't necessarily fulfilling.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
It was a very interesting truth for me, which was
that I was both in it and not in it.
I was both into the materialism and gaining this notoriety
and making money at the same time that I was like,
this is all bullshit and like what the fuck am
I doing? That life is very empty and false. It's
(35:23):
not based on a deep connection to people around me.
It's not based on you know, me being like a
really deep thinking, soulful person. Or I wanted to find
a deep happiness and satisfaction and realized that it wasn't
going to be found there.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
And ultimately, he was missing the things he valued most.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
In twenty seventeen, I woke up on New Year's Day
and I was in my bed in the same dimension.
I had a girl on either side of me. You know.
I had my Aston Martin, and I had my Dakati,
and I had tons of money and everything I could want.
And I remember that moment when I just wanted to
like blow my brains out. You know, It's like this
is just like this is also fucking poiless.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
Next on Sanctum Unmasked.
Speaker 6 (36:20):
But I didn't realize that anything was wrong. Neither did he.
You know, we just thought this is normal.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
There were many armed men, guns drawn, you know, and
he starts fucking with me, putting a gun to my head,
putting a gun in my mouth like it was scary.
Speaker 4 (36:39):
He just thought he was always above the law or
above that kind of authority, and he made a lot
of enemies there.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
Sanctum Unmasked is a production of School of Humans and
iHeart Podcasts, hosted and written by me Carly Schortino. Etaly's
Perez is our lead producer and story editor. Amelia Brock
is our senior producer, sound design, scoring, mixing, and mastering
by Chris Childs. Original music composed by Jesse Niswanger. Fact
checking by Austin Thompson. Logo illustration by Linda McNeil Graham
(37:14):
Gibson as our recording engineer. Recorded at iHeart Studios in
Los Angeles, California. Executive producers are Nick Stump, Jason English,
Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, Elsie Crowley, and me Carly Schortino.
If you're enjoying the show, help us get the word
out be leaving a rating in your favorite podcast app.
You can keep up with Damon on Instagram. He's at
Father Damon. Tune in next week.
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