May 25, 2023 • 41 mins
After years at the helm of SNCTM, Damon faces a daunting question: where is the line between sexual experimentation and sexual compulsion? Disillusioned with the sex club and this world he’s built, Damon comes to the conclusion that what feels good, may not actually be good for him. And as he forces himself to confront his addictions, he realizes he needs to untangle his own identity from that of SNCTM’s… in order to set himself on a better path.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
School of Humans. Sanctum Unmasked is about a sex club
and describes various sex acts. Please use discretion where and
when you listen. So as we've talked about in the past,
there was a lot on offer at Sanctum. The sexual
menu was, shall we say expansive. Are you interested in
(00:25):
the foursome with two skinny white women dressed as woodland nymphs,
sex with a limptic billionaire under an oil painting of
an all seeing eye, or perhaps being whipped by a
mass stranger with a diamond encrusted flogger that costs more
than your undergrad Sanctum's got you covered, and as the
overlord of this world, Damon was constantly being propositioned for
(00:50):
more than just sex, and it could be hard to
say no.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
I had experiences early on where someone that was heavy
into BDSM ask me point blank. She was like, may
you're a piss in anyone's mouth? And I was like no,
And she was like do you want to? And I
honestly I was like no, not really, it doesn't really
interest me and yeah, and she was like, well, let
me explain it to you. If this is something you
(01:14):
would want to do, I would get down on my
hands and knees, and I'd get naked first, I'd put
my hands behind my back and I'd stick my tongue out.
You could piss in my mouth and it would drip
down out of my mouth, down my breast, down in
my pussy, and you can do whatever you want after that.
And I was like, Okay, let's do this. Why wouldn't
I She's asked me to, she wants to, And honestly,
(01:40):
why have I never pissed in anyone's mouth? I don't know.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
I'm a forty year old man. What am I doing
with my life?
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Exactly?
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Welcome to Sanctum Unmasked. I'm your host, Carl Schortino.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Okay, so are we ready to Are we rolling? Okay? Cool?
So what's what's my first question?
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Starting really light today? Do you consider yourself a sex addict?
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Are you fucking serious? That's really where we're starting. Wow,
here we go. Well, I consider myself a I guess,
recovering sex addict. I undoubtedly was. I mean, I want
to say rule, that's the wrong word. But sexuality had
a lot of control over me, rather than me having
(02:36):
control over my own sexuality, especially you know during the
sanctum years when it was just all around me. I mean,
I guess like if you're into drinking or into like,
you know, drug use, it would be like you have
this mansion and it's just filled without calling drugs, and
you're like, this is easy. So you know, I was
really in a position where it was easy for me
to explore that stuff and feel like it was okay.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
Right. It's like having a drinking problem and then moving
into a giant free bar where the liquor bottles sleep
in bed with you in slutty lingerie and beg you
to drink them. Doesn't sound easy. Oh and by the way,
I don't think engaging in piss play necessarily makes you
a sex addict. We just thought that peace story was
funny and wanted to get it in before the end
(03:20):
of the podcast. Anyway, back in our first episode, we
pose the question what happens when you shed societal expectations
and just unapologetically pursue personal sexual freedom? But a kind
of necessary part two to that question is where is
the line between sexual freedom and sexual compulsion? What is
(03:44):
engaging in healthy exploration of your erotic self in the world,
and what's just being a full on sex Maniac from Help. Honestly,
it's a question that I've asked myself many times over
the course of my adult life, and the answer isn't
always so clear. When we left you last, it was
twenty seventeen and Daemon was hitting his breaking point with Sanctum.
(04:07):
The logistics of running a sex club at that level
had become overwhelming, particularly navigating the messy world of sex work, morality,
and consent amid a cyclone of money and ego. But
Demon was also doing some reflection about how the culture
of Sanctum was impacting his personal relationship to sex and
(04:28):
to alcohol. He was drinking too much, increasingly as a
form of escape, and being so immersed in a world
where sex wasn't just constantly available but also a currency,
was starting to feel toxic. This space of so called
sexual freedom had now become a prison of his own desires,
and it didn't help that his life was basically well this.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
A constant stream of videos, photos, DMS, messages showing up
at my mind doorstep, showing up at my parties like
just straight up, Hi, my friend and I really want
to fuck you? Will you fuck us? Like that?
Speaker 1 (05:11):
It's a lot whether the girls were genuinely attracted to him,
or they just wanted to brag to their friends that
they fucked the founder of Sanctum, or they were just
trying to get an invite to the party. It just
sounds exhausting to be that fuckable.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
It felt fucking amazing. It mitigated the fact that I
was not with my favorite person in the world. It
mitigated the fact that I left Melissa and my children
to pursue this thing. You know, it was my drug.
I was like a crack addict. I mean I got
so high off of it all. But then you know,
just like if you smoke crack, it feels real good
(05:47):
when you're high on it, but then you come down
from it and you're like, oh, I'm such a fucking
piece of shit, Like, what the fuck is wrong with me?
I'm disgusting, Like what am I doing? And you can't
get enough of it.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
Of course, Melissa was watching this all play out, and
she was genuinely worried for him.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
Yeah, he has an issue. He definitely needed to work
on himself with his sex addiction situation. How he came
to even like know that there was a sex addiction
problem was because when we were separated. He was living
at the Sincton mansion. I mean, Damon told me this himself,
that he had sex with like one hundred and eighty women,
(06:28):
And this isn't a span of a year, so you
do the math, Like that's a lot. I remember sitting
in the car in front of his house and he's
telling me this, and I'm like, are you like really?
And also the emotion what lies beneath all of that,
Like why are you seeking out that many women? Why
(06:52):
do you need this much validation and continuous attention? It
was like an addict needing a drug, and his was
women and the attention he got from them.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Now, this is pretty relatable, probably not the one hundred
and eighty women part, but the part about sex being validating.
So many of us have felt at times that our worth,
at least in part, is caught up in our attractiveness,
our sex appeal, our datability. I mean, I've certainly looked
to sex or just attention in general to regulate my emotions.
(07:28):
On more than one occasion, it's like I feel bad
about myself, I'm going to have sex with someone to
boost my ego, or I feel insecure in my relationships,
so I'm going to cheat to make myself feel less vulnerable.
It's certainly not great, but it's unfortunately human.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
I felt important and I felt loved, and I felt
less empty when someone was coming at me and telling
me that they want to fuck me, or telling me
how handsome I am, or orgasming underneath me, you know,
like that made me feel good. That was one of
the only things that made me feel special or worthwhile.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
And Damon's specific background, being a survivor of child sex abuse,
only exasperated this issue.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Sexuality and my identity were so wrapped up together from
the time, you know, I was a little kid, from
the time I was six years old and I discovered
way too young what sex was, you know, And then
when I was sixteen seventeen and I was starting to
do modeling and commercials and getting so much praise for
the way I look. It's like all of the praise
(08:32):
was like external, and a lot of it came from women.
I remember when I was younger, just like, you know,
I'm sixteen or something and I go over to my
girlfriend's house and their mom would meet me, and their
mom would be like, you know, oh, he's a keeper.
You know, he's so cute, and the mom's looking at me,
you know, wanting to eat me alive. And I loved it.
It was like, oh, wow, I'm really special.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
You know.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
I can see now with hindsight that these women wanted
a piece in me, not so much for me, but
for them. I was the feather in their cap.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
The experience of being objectified is something we often think
of as a more traditionally female experience. It's more rare
that we see this, or at least talk about this
from a male perspective, and it's interesting. Objectification is complicated
because it can feel good to be desired in that way,
and yet when people don't see you as a whole person,
(09:28):
especially in your formative years, that can have lasting negative effects.
Speaker 4 (09:33):
I think it's well publicized that there's sort of this
pretty girl syndrome, but I think it's less well publicized
that there's pretty boy syndrome. In the same way.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
That's our pal journalist Mike Seger.
Speaker 4 (09:45):
It's a little bit of a handicap to be so
pretty because people just come to you, so you don't
develop skills of how to deal with people as well,
and then people are like curious to you you're not
quite sure how they work, because like the rest of us,
have to like give people what they need in order
to get what we want.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
In other words, being really hot can inhibit your ability
to develop certain social skills. It can make you a
bit of an idiot. No offense, as much.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
As I wanted to escape into this world of my addictions,
and that's what Sanctum was above all, was a world
where I could fully engage in sex, drugs, and rock
and roll more like house music, where I could fully
engage in all of that and not only like revel
(10:34):
in it, but sort of be put on a pedestal
for it. For an alcoholic and a sex addict, being
the king of Sanctum was like the ultimate position. At
some point, living that way got to meet.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
We throw around the term sex addict a lot these days.
This idea of a dark, overwhelming sexuality has become a
hot topic in mainstream culture. Hollywood has been increasingly broaching
the subject, For instance, Steve McQueen's critically acclaimed film Shame.
There's also twenty fifteen's Sleeping with Other People, which funnily enough,
(11:11):
is a sex addiction rom com starring Ted Lasso. They
also recently dealt with the topic on season two of
The White Lotus, in which Michael Imperioli's character struggles with
sexual compulsion. And there's one of my favorite films of
all time, Lauras Bontrier's Nymphomaniac. If you like this podcast,
I really insist you watch. And then there's the various
(11:32):
celebrities checking into sex rehabs, both on and off VH one,
like David Duchovny Russell Brand, Tiger Woods, etc. Sex addiction
it's the new trendiest problem. But what does it mean
to be a sex addict? What does that look like?
And can you actually be addicted to sex in the
(11:52):
way you can be with drugs or alcohol? Well, according
to the DSM, you can't. You might be familiar with
the DA if not, it's essentially the Bible of Mental
Health Disorders, used by health professionals in the United States
as an authoritative guide to the diagnosis of mental disorders.
It's periodically updated by the American Psychiatric Association, and for
(12:14):
years people have been arguing about whether sex addiction or
some type of hypersexuality disorder should be included, but it's
nowhere to be found in the most current version. However,
the ICD AKA the International Classification of Diseases, which is
the rest of the world's equivalent to the DSM, recently
(12:35):
did include compulsive sexual behavior disorder. In other words, sex
addiction is a polarizing topic. Additionally, the idea of sex
addiction can be considered problematic because it has been used
to pathologize gay men or to moralize about the use
of pornography, or I'm a sex addict can be offered
(12:55):
as a cop out for not so great sexual behavior.
According to doctor genre Rangalova, the reason we're so divided
on this issue is because we don't understand the problem,
in part because there's so much stigma around sex. Remember
doctor Jhanna is a sex researcher and the Human Sexuality
Professor at NYU.
Speaker 5 (13:15):
The whole concept of sex addiction is so fraught.
Speaker 6 (13:20):
My take on that is that there is no doubt
some people are having sex in ways that are self
destructive and other destructive.
Speaker 5 (13:31):
The difficulty in distinguishing what is what.
Speaker 6 (13:33):
Is that we live in a world that pathologizes the
high end of the sex drive and sexual novelty seeking
spectrum by default that in and of itself, you know
wanting to have sex every day, or wanting to have
sex with multiple people in a lot of these different, new,
kind of crazy, wild environments, that in and of itself
(13:53):
is not a problem.
Speaker 5 (13:55):
There's nothing pathological about.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
That, right, Having a high sex doesn't inherently mean you're
mentally ill. It feels important to note that.
Speaker 6 (14:04):
And yet, because we live in a culture that pathologizes
that end of the spectrum, no matter what, it doesn't
give you a healthy way of doing it.
Speaker 5 (14:14):
All of that lack of proper information training.
Speaker 6 (14:17):
Tools makes them end up doing it in these destructive
ways and excessive ways.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
Essentially, if you want to have a lot of sex
with different people, you're a slut with a problem, you know,
according to society, And because so many people think this way,
if you are one of these slutty people, chances are
that your friends or family or even your partner are
expressing concern about you or treating you like you're a
bad person, and then, unsurprisingly, you're left feeling guilt and
(14:48):
shame about your desires. So basically, the question is how
much of the shame or negativity we feel associated with
sex is inherently ours and how much of it is
a social construct well, it's often difficult to know. And
like we talked about in a previous episode, what happens
when your sexual desires are suppressed for a long time,
(15:10):
but then you open the floodgates, as Damon experienced, you
can kind of go berserk. And according to doctor Jhanna,
that's actually not all that surprising.
Speaker 5 (15:20):
The excessiveness itself can be a product of the repression.
Speaker 6 (15:24):
It's like a kid in a candy store. And if
you keep a kid away from the candy store forever,
they walk by and they see it, like, oh my god,
I want some.
Speaker 5 (15:34):
No, you can't have it. It, can't have it, can't
have it. And then once you let them in, they're
going to eat every single candy in the store. It's
just human nature, you know.
Speaker 6 (15:43):
Just look at binge drinking prevent people from doing it
for a very long period of time, an unreasonable period
of time if you ask the Europeans, and then when
you let them drink, yeah, they're going to drink themselves
to death.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
When talking to Damon about the fragmented you of the
validity of sex addiction, he had a very strong opinion.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
I don't care how it's recognized. Sexuality is something that
can be highly addictive. To think that there is no
sexual compulsion or that it couldn't be an addiction, I
think that's ridiculous because, well, just from my own experience
feeling like it was a compulsion at times, and comparing
that to my addiction or compulsion to alcohol, they are
exactly the same. And the relief I would get from
(16:26):
taking a drink or the relief I would get from
having sex are so similar. When I would take a drink,
I would feel better about myself. I'd feel like, you know,
I'm a little bit more handsome, I'm a little bit
more special, I'm a little bit more whatever. The same
thing would happen with me with sexuality. I would get
that same feeling, that same like ego up boost or whatever.
They're so similar to me. It would be terrible if
(16:46):
there's a stigma on it, like, oh, no, you're not
a sex addict, You're just a fucked up person. I mean,
maybe that's true, but imagine saying that to an alcoholic.
You know, you're not an alcoholic, you just can't stop drinking.
You're a fucking asshole. That's the wrong way of looking
at it.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
I think that makes sense, and like with drinking, if
you have one too many drinks, you might become a
little reckless, less aware of or sensitive to what is
healthy boundary behavior and what's crossing a line, and sexual
compulsion can be the source of a similar type of recklessness.
(17:20):
It's what doctor Jhanna was just saying. Whether you believe
in sex addiction or not, there are definitely people who
are having sex and ways that are self destructive and
other destructive. Damon personally contends that he's never overstepped anyone's boundaries.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
I know in my heart and soul that I was
never abusive towards anybody. I never tried to get anyone
to do anything they didn't want to do. I never, like,
I just didn't do that. I didn't cross any lines.
I mean I felt very desired, you know, if someone
was to have sex with me because they wanted something
from me. I mean, that's not really on me. Everything
(17:55):
I ever did was done with consent and as much
like love and sense quality as I could muster, you know.
And some of it wasn't. I mean, some of it
was just like crazy fucking you know. But as far
as I knew, as far as I was aware of.
That's what we were all there for.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
Of course, our experiences of sex are subjective. Something that's
fun for one person might be kind of off putting
or even scary for another person. We'd be remiss not
to mention that in reporting this podcast, some people didn't
speak very highly of Damon. Some said that he made
them feel uncomfortable or they didn't want to be associated
with him on this show. They have their reasons for that,
(18:36):
and I'll know they didn't want to go on record
to explain those reasons anyway. For Damon, once he was
able to admit to himself that he had a sex
addiction problem, he tried to get some help and so.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
He started to dive into therapy and I think he
was going to go away to this clinic for men.
The guy that ran this clinic is like in this
other state. He got on the phone with Demon and
Damon was telling him about his you know, what was
going on with him. And then the guy was like, wait, wait,
you're Demon from Sanctum. No, we can't take you denied
(19:13):
going to a goddamn like clinic to like heal because
this guy already had these other men and he was
like if you bring this dude in, he might trigger
all of these other guys to relapse because of the
sex club, because of just the access to all of
these women and all of this, like it was just
(19:34):
too easy. So he was denied that access to go
to that place.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
Okay, that's definitely sad, but also objectively kind of funny.
Now Demon wasn't the only one going through a transition.
There was also a major shakeup happening at Sanctum More
gossip after the break. Now, Damon's internal reckoning was happening
(20:11):
as he was being kicked out of the Sanctum mansion.
If you remember when Damon signed the lease on the
mansion in twenty sixteen, the reason he got such a
good deal on the rent was because the house was
said to be demolished, and the owner let Damon move
in while he waited on permits. And thirteen months later
the permits came and soon Damon would have to pack
(20:33):
his things and get out, and that meant he'd also
have to go back to finding a different rental mansion
every month to host the party, which was a ton
of work and clearly not ideal. This transition marked the
end of an era for sanctum and for Damon, but
he took it as an opportunity to pursue a different priority.
(20:54):
While preparing to leave the mansion, he had formulated a
plan to get Melissa back.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
I was really intent on putting my family back together
and trying to go back to my life as it
had been before. It wasn't so much like, oh, I'm
like bored of having sex with beautiful women now. It
wasn't that, but there was certainly a feeling in me
that having my wife back was more important to me
than having sex with lots of people. I spent twenty
(21:21):
years with the love of my life. I have two
kids that there's nothing on the planet that I care about.
I love more than them. I just wanted it back.
I was willing to give up this dream, because when
I walked into the dream, I was willing to give
them up. That's fucking horrible to say, but I have
to cop to it. I was willing to give them up.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
And it's kind of obvious to Melissa at least why
her absence really made Damon reevaluate things.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
I was the matriarch, I was the mother, so to speak,
in a way like I was holding down the house
and how it functioned, and I made our life move
and flow and work all the thousand invisible domestic fucking
things that a woman does that no one sees. I
think Damon and his childhood being so messed up and
(22:11):
not having a great mother, he did not have great
modeling for parents at all, and so when I provided
that for him and then it was gone, I think
that it brought him back to his childhood and that
was very scary. It's very scary for him. You know,
he started as spiral as well, and he got into
a really dark place and you know, would call me
(22:32):
and be so sad or on the floor crying, and
I'm like, you know, I I'm not going to do this.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
Remember by this point, Melissa was dating her old neighbor Billy,
but Damon would not be deterred. He insisted, look, I've changed,
I'm not that guy anymore. And apparently he was pretty convincing.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
And so I broke up with Billy, devastated him, got
back together with Damon, moved into the Saincton Mansion with
the girls, and started to live like this domestic.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
Life there at that house.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
I'm like a fucking crazy n I don't know what
I was doing, but I guess I would have done
anything to keep my family together, literally anything. So I
moved back in and then he's in the shower and
again the phone is on the nightstand and I see
all these fucking texts coming in and he's texting these girls,
and I lost it. I fucking lost it. I opened
(23:32):
the shower door. I'm like, what the fuck, and I
freak out and I show him the phone and he's
like so sorry and so apologetic and like he's standing
there naked and wet, and I'm like, I'm then I'm out.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
I guess old habits die hard. And for Melissa, that
was the final straw.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
Now I can't hold your hands anymore. Like it's time
to grow up and it's time to figure it out
and do the work, and leaving that is actually the
greatest gift you could give that person. Otherwise you're enabling
and they're never going to grow and learn, and neither
are you, for that matter. Like, I was really out
and it was really done, and I never revisited that again.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
I'm sure many of us have been in a situation
like this. You go back to an X and you're
like it's going to be different this time. You're in
the honeymoon phase again and you're having great sex, and
then the old problems reappear, and suddenly you're hit over
the fucking head with all the reasons you left in
the first place. It's like a microcosm of your entire relationship.
(24:38):
But sometimes going back is what provides the clarity you
needed about why this really truly no, actually, this time
it's over. For Damon.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
This was a real wake up call. I was always
conflicted with the reality that I was giving up my
family for this, And once I realized that I could
not have my cake and eat it too, I let
go of sanctum. I stopped drinking the kool aid. I
(25:09):
was looking around, and I was kind of like, you know, hmm,
what are we doing exactly? Is it the kind of
spiritualized eroticism that I was seeking and made this thing
so special? Or is it just money and young girls
and sex and rich guys and just a bunch of
fucking bullshit. At this point, and at some point I
(25:33):
had to admit that that's what it was. For me,
it was official.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
It was time to leave the party.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
At one point, you asked me like, would you let
your daughters go to Sanctum? And I think my immediate
gut reaction was fuck no. And that says a lot
to me too, because you know, these girls that were
working for me were probably you know, in their twenties
and there were kids. As a father, I would never
subject my own kids to that experience. I just would never.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
Mike Sager definitely noticed a duality in Damon.
Speaker 4 (26:06):
He was providing a service for people, There's no doubt
about that. At the same time, he was conflicted about
the service he was providing, and at the same time
he wanted to be loved. It's almost like he's got
this sort of sensitivity that he's pulled toward, like certain
universal truths, and then he like goes too far into
(26:27):
the volcano and he's got to come back out, and
he's creating torture for himself. So it's like he's constantly
in opposition with good Damon and bad Damon.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
Or Damon versus Demon as Damon himself sometimes refers to
this unfortunate reality.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
Just money and power and ego, and I was just
in it. Nothing was enough. It was like the crazier
I got, the more everyone in the mental institution was
just like, you know, cheering me on, like we're all
in this asylum together, and it was like, yeah, get
fucking crazier. You know, you're you're you're the cult leader.
(27:08):
You know, whatever you do, we're gonna do. But around
twenty seventeen, I started to emotionally detach and it's time
for me to get the fuck out of the asylum.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
Now that the veil had lifted for Damon, he had
a new mission. He had to get the club to
a place where he could sell it for what he
thought it was worth, at least seven figures, but there
was some work he had to do to get it
to that place.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
The next year of my life was how do I
separate Damon from Sanctum. How do I make Sanctum someone
that someone could buy? Because Sanctum was Damon. People came
to the events to see Damon, you know, they came
to the events to, like well, to party and have sex.
But like, I was like that guy, and that took
me over a year to just sort of get things
(27:59):
in play so that this was not about me anymore.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
So we mentioned previously that a couple of years into
doing the club back in twenty fifteen, Demon started doing
occasional Sanctum parties in New York, but over time it
started to expand even further. Over the years, they did
one off events in places like Miami and Kiev randomly,
and after leaving the Mansion, Demon was asked to come
through a party in Moscow and he jumped at the offer,
(28:26):
feeling like it could increase the value of the brand.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
Moscow came along, and that was this incredible opportunity to
do something I never dreamed I would ever do. They
were the best parties that Sanctum ever did. The guy
who was kind of funding the whole thing, there was
no price tag. He didn't care what he spent. He
was like an older groc He didn't give a fuck.
So you know, we could spend whatever we wanted to spend.
I don't know what's going on over there on Russia,
but you know, you've got these like beautiful men and
(28:51):
beautiful women, and you fill a room with them and
give them this night of freedom, which they really took
to heart and they really appreciate it more so than
in the United States.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
Damon did six parties in Moscow over roughly the next
year and a half, and around that same time came
another opportunity. He was offered to be the subject of
a docu series for Showtime that centered around his life
and the club. Again, he was like, well, this seems
like it will be good for the brand, so he
went with it. The show, which aired for one season,
(29:24):
was called Naked Sanctum. While it was pitched to Damon
as being more documentary, the result leaned far more reality show.
I only made it through like seventy five percent of
an episode, but our producer Ata Lee's watched the whole
thing and says, never again. It's kind of like The Hills,
but the sex club version. It's very staged, lots of
(29:45):
people who aren't actors trying to act like themselves and failing,
plus an ungodly amount of red lighting. It's basically the
opposite of this podcast, which is obviously very deep and
meaningful and hysterically funny. When you bring up Naked Sanctum
with Damon Now he gets triggered.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
It was all fake and bullshit and set up. The
television show created this sort of like false reality of
what Sanctum was. There was nothing real about it that
was not like the legacy of Sanctum that I wanted
to have.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
When he decided to sign on and do the Naked
Sanctum reality show for Showtime, I freaked the fuck out.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
I was like, no, do not do this.
Speaker 3 (30:23):
It's going to ruin the family. It's going to ruin everything.
We're already divorced. I have these two girls, and I
have to always keep the best interest in alignment, and
Damon is a part of that. So like, that's just
a visual that now the entire world will be able
to see. And I just forecasted a horrible future and
(30:49):
just like a lot of like more bullshit to deal.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
With with people and my kids.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
I didn't want me or him or Mike children to
live under that institution.
Speaker 4 (31:03):
And she was right.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
In fact, the effects of the show were even worse
than she feared.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
Olivia was in sixth grade and was getting teased at school.
She was also getting DMed on social media by submissives
that had been fired from Sanctum who were disgruntled and angry.
And this one girl wrote her Olivia sixth grade, what
a piece of shit her dad is and all of
the things that happened to her at the nightclub, and
(31:33):
Damon is responsible to a little girl, and at that
point we were going to fucking sue everyone on the planet.
I was freaking out and pulled Olivia out of school
because she was having social anxiety, like she couldn't even
go to class anymore. My homeschooled for the rest of
that year. I mean, you fuck with people's kids, and
it's like war.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
I had my children, and I knew that what I
was doing was affecting them negatively. The poster guy for
the sex club. My oldest was about to enter high school,
so I made her a promise, and I said, listen,
when you enter high school, I will have sold Sanctum.
It'll be announced in the press, and you know, it'll
be behind us. If your friends, your friend's parents, you know,
(32:14):
doesn't your dad run like a sex club. You can
say he sold it. He's out of it. He doesn't
do that anymore. So I would say that that was
probably the biggest factor for me to sell Sanctum.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
So, like we said, DEMON spent a long time setting
up the club to be something worth buying, but when
it came time to pull the trigger, it wasn't that simple.
For multiple reasons.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
When I went to start to field offers or the
idea of a sale of Sanctum. It was really hard.
You know, this is not it didn't have a brick
and mortar location because if we would do it in homes,
it wasn't a commercial establishment. So what you were buying
when you were buying Sanctum was you know, a website,
a name, a contact list, and sort of a good idea.
(33:00):
You know, that's what you were buying. And then in
addition to that, you were then faced with, if you
were a legitimate businessman, you were faced with like, wow,
this is risky, you know, like something could go wrong here.
What if someone gets raped? What if someone says I
was sexually harassed? Try getting insurance for a sex club.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
And then there was the issue that there's just a
lot of stigma around sex in general on this hellish
earth that we're living on. Despite Sanctum pulling in millions
of dollars a year, the logistics of managing the financial
component of a sex club could be super annoying and
therefore unsurprisingly not so appealing to buyers.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
And then trying to find someone to run credit cards
for me, traditional banks won't do it. It was really complicated.
I first ran Sanctum using PayPal. I had over thirty
thousand dollars in PayPal to do my next party, and
I was not doing anything wrong in any way. But
we were running a sex club, and so someone at
PayPal I guess at some point looked on the website
(33:58):
and they wrote me a letter and they said, we've
rosen your funds. There's no recourse at all.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
This is truly fucked and something that is actually pretty
common if you're someone who works in any facet of
the sex industry. Financial institutions like Venmo or PayPal can
and do just randomly shot people's accounts without warning or
due process, to the point that the ACLU has actually
gotten involved, saying that PayPal and Venmo targeting and freezing
(34:27):
sex workers accounts is a civil rights issue. Sorry, that's
a bit of a tangent, but I just think it's
worth pointing out how much of a puritanical Big Brother
nightmare that is. But anyway, eventually Demon did get an
offer to buy the club that he couldn't refuse. He
won't disclose what exactly the number was, but it was
reported as being at least seven figures. After more than
(34:49):
six years of running, Sanctum. He officially gave over the reins,
and just to complete the ridiculousness of this whole thing,
Sanctum was purchased by an anonymous inv group the we
refers to itself as the Circle, obviously.
Speaker 3 (35:05):
So he comes over to my house, he sit at
my table and he tells me he's going to sell Sanctum,
and I one part of myself was like relieved, and
I was so happy for him that he could get
out of this thing that I knew kept pulling him
into this dark place and it wasn't healthy for him.
On the other hand, I was like, Okay, so my
support payments are probably going to go down, you know,
(35:27):
like I'm dependent on alimony and child support on a
lot of levels at that point. And I was like, shit,
so that's going to mean I've got up my game
and I've got to figure out, like what am I
going to do to support myself and the girls. All
in all, it come back to our kids, like I
(35:48):
want them to have a healthy, functioning, stable, secure father
that is modeling a good male figure for them, because
now that they're teenagers, they're gonna go find a dude
that's like their dad, Like that's what we do. We
seek out what we saw and were modeled when we
(36:11):
were young. And I'm like, damn it, I don't want
them to really do that. Like I love him on
so many levels, but then his dark shadow site is
also so large and glaring at times.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
I mean, she has a point. Anyway, Damon agrees to
sell Sanctum to this ominous sounding investment group, and I'm
going to kill him for telling me this part of
the story when the mics weren't on But according to Damon,
the circle said they would only pay in cash, so
in order to get the money, he had to charter
(36:48):
a private jet to New York in order to fly
the two suitcases full of cash back to LA. Somehow,
this feels like an appropriate end to his Sanctum journey,
like even the way he sold the place was on
brand for him. And it's also interesting to note the
Demon sold Sanctum in August of twenty nineteen. Six months later,
(37:08):
COVID hit and the club was shot down throughout the
height of the pandemic. Yet again, Damon's dumb luck served
him well. After letting go of the club, Damon did
end up getting help with the issues he was struggling
with and this time he stuck with it.
Speaker 3 (37:24):
He saw a therapist, started to walk that path of
healing from what was a sex addiction. It's kind of
how we have been able to stay amicable and stay
friends now is because I was able to see his pain,
and I know his childhood and I know how he
(37:45):
was raised, and I know what's in him, and so
I was able to see that that's his darkness, that's
his shadow self, and I could compartmentalize and I could
remove that from the person that I know and love
and as the father of my children. It's about being enough,
you know, for anything.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
If you're an.
Speaker 3 (38:06):
Alcoholic, a drug addic, a sex add a chopoholic, whatever
it is, it's like you're filling a void inside yourself
with this outside stuff. But really it's like you have
to work on yourself with are you enough? And then
fill your own cup with your own you know, love
(38:26):
and spirituality, whatever it is. And so I think he's
doing that now.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
Ugh, I feel like you're enough? Is hard? You know,
I got it. What came next for Damon and his
suitcases full of cash was embarking on a period of
sobriety celibacy and single them. I don't know about you,
but I certainly couldn't have predicted that.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
It took years from me to sort of come down
off the Sanctum high and separate myself from Sanctum. You know,
I don't get literally hundreds of messages coming in on
an almost daily basis from women who want to fuck me.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
So I asked, Damon, what does it feel like to
not have that? Now?
Speaker 2 (39:11):
Fantastic? That was like a drug for me. So, you know,
how does it feel for me to not be getting drunk?
I guess I miss it a little bit, but I
love the clarity. I love that I know I'm a
stand up person now I'm I mean, not drinking and
having dealt with the sex addiction. It's completely changed who
(39:32):
I am. So I guess I like myself a lot
more now.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
Next, on our final episode of Sanctum Unmasked.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
You should get collateral on these people. You should hide cameras.
You know you've got these billionaires fucking you know, these girls,
you've got like all these celebrities. If you had that collateral, man,
you'd control Hollywood.
Speaker 6 (39:56):
It encourages you to continue wearing the mask, not literally,
but symbolically for lobsters.
Speaker 3 (40:04):
Right you put them in the water and then it
starts boiling. They don't realize they're in the boiling water
till it's killing them.
Speaker 1 (40:13):
Sanctum Unmasked is the production of School of Humans and
iHeart podcasts. Posted and written by me Carly Schortino. Edie's
Perez is our lead producer and story editor. Amelia Brock
is our senior producer. Sound design, scoring and mixing by
George Hicks. Original music composed by Jesse Niswanger, fact checking
by Austin Thompson. Loco illustration by Linda McNeil. Josh Hook
(40:37):
is 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 Schortina. If you're enjoying the show,
help us get the word out by leaving a rating
in your favorite podcast app. You can keep up with
Damon on Instagram. He's at Father Damon been in next
(41:00):
week
Speaker 4 (41:05):
MHM.
School of Humans. Sanctum Unmasked is about a sex club
and describes various sex acts. Please use discretion where and
when you listen. So as we've talked about in the past,
there was a lot on offer at Sanctum. The sexual
menu was, shall we say expansive. Are you interested in
(00:25):
the foursome with two skinny white women dressed as woodland nymphs,
sex with a limptic billionaire under an oil painting of
an all seeing eye, or perhaps being whipped by a
mass stranger with a diamond encrusted flogger that costs more
than your undergrad Sanctum's got you covered, and as the
overlord of this world, Damon was constantly being propositioned for
(00:50):
more than just sex, and it could be hard to
say no.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
I had experiences early on where someone that was heavy
into BDSM ask me point blank. She was like, may
you're a piss in anyone's mouth? And I was like no,
And she was like do you want to? And I
honestly I was like no, not really, it doesn't really
interest me and yeah, and she was like, well, let
me explain it to you. If this is something you
(01:14):
would want to do, I would get down on my
hands and knees, and I'd get naked first, I'd put
my hands behind my back and I'd stick my tongue out.
You could piss in my mouth and it would drip
down out of my mouth, down my breast, down in
my pussy, and you can do whatever you want after that.
And I was like, Okay, let's do this. Why wouldn't
I She's asked me to, she wants to, And honestly,
(01:40):
why have I never pissed in anyone's mouth? I don't know.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
I'm a forty year old man. What am I doing
with my life?
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Exactly?
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Welcome to Sanctum Unmasked. I'm your host, Carl Schortino.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Okay, so are we ready to Are we rolling? Okay? Cool?
So what's what's my first question?
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Starting really light today? Do you consider yourself a sex addict?
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Are you fucking serious? That's really where we're starting. Wow,
here we go. Well, I consider myself a I guess,
recovering sex addict. I undoubtedly was. I mean, I want
to say rule, that's the wrong word. But sexuality had
a lot of control over me, rather than me having
(02:36):
control over my own sexuality, especially you know during the
sanctum years when it was just all around me. I mean,
I guess like if you're into drinking or into like,
you know, drug use, it would be like you have
this mansion and it's just filled without calling drugs, and
you're like, this is easy. So you know, I was
really in a position where it was easy for me
to explore that stuff and feel like it was okay.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
Right. It's like having a drinking problem and then moving
into a giant free bar where the liquor bottles sleep
in bed with you in slutty lingerie and beg you
to drink them. Doesn't sound easy. Oh and by the way,
I don't think engaging in piss play necessarily makes you
a sex addict. We just thought that peace story was
funny and wanted to get it in before the end
(03:20):
of the podcast. Anyway, back in our first episode, we
pose the question what happens when you shed societal expectations
and just unapologetically pursue personal sexual freedom? But a kind
of necessary part two to that question is where is
the line between sexual freedom and sexual compulsion? What is
(03:44):
engaging in healthy exploration of your erotic self in the world,
and what's just being a full on sex Maniac from Help. Honestly,
it's a question that I've asked myself many times over
the course of my adult life, and the answer isn't
always so clear. When we left you last, it was
twenty seventeen and Daemon was hitting his breaking point with Sanctum.
(04:07):
The logistics of running a sex club at that level
had become overwhelming, particularly navigating the messy world of sex work, morality,
and consent amid a cyclone of money and ego. But
Demon was also doing some reflection about how the culture
of Sanctum was impacting his personal relationship to sex and
(04:28):
to alcohol. He was drinking too much, increasingly as a
form of escape, and being so immersed in a world
where sex wasn't just constantly available but also a currency,
was starting to feel toxic. This space of so called
sexual freedom had now become a prison of his own desires,
and it didn't help that his life was basically well this.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
A constant stream of videos, photos, DMS, messages showing up
at my mind doorstep, showing up at my parties like
just straight up, Hi, my friend and I really want
to fuck you? Will you fuck us? Like that?
Speaker 1 (05:11):
It's a lot whether the girls were genuinely attracted to him,
or they just wanted to brag to their friends that
they fucked the founder of Sanctum, or they were just
trying to get an invite to the party. It just
sounds exhausting to be that fuckable.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
It felt fucking amazing. It mitigated the fact that I
was not with my favorite person in the world. It
mitigated the fact that I left Melissa and my children
to pursue this thing. You know, it was my drug.
I was like a crack addict. I mean I got
so high off of it all. But then you know,
just like if you smoke crack, it feels real good
(05:47):
when you're high on it, but then you come down
from it and you're like, oh, I'm such a fucking
piece of shit, Like, what the fuck is wrong with me?
I'm disgusting, Like what am I doing? And you can't
get enough of it.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
Of course, Melissa was watching this all play out, and
she was genuinely worried for him.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
Yeah, he has an issue. He definitely needed to work
on himself with his sex addiction situation. How he came
to even like know that there was a sex addiction
problem was because when we were separated. He was living
at the Sincton mansion. I mean, Damon told me this himself,
that he had sex with like one hundred and eighty women,
(06:28):
And this isn't a span of a year, so you
do the math, Like that's a lot. I remember sitting
in the car in front of his house and he's
telling me this, and I'm like, are you like really?
And also the emotion what lies beneath all of that,
Like why are you seeking out that many women? Why
(06:52):
do you need this much validation and continuous attention? It
was like an addict needing a drug, and his was
women and the attention he got from them.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Now, this is pretty relatable, probably not the one hundred
and eighty women part, but the part about sex being validating.
So many of us have felt at times that our worth,
at least in part, is caught up in our attractiveness,
our sex appeal, our datability. I mean, I've certainly looked
to sex or just attention in general to regulate my emotions.
(07:28):
On more than one occasion, it's like I feel bad
about myself, I'm going to have sex with someone to
boost my ego, or I feel insecure in my relationships,
so I'm going to cheat to make myself feel less vulnerable.
It's certainly not great, but it's unfortunately human.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
I felt important and I felt loved, and I felt
less empty when someone was coming at me and telling
me that they want to fuck me, or telling me
how handsome I am, or orgasming underneath me, you know,
like that made me feel good. That was one of
the only things that made me feel special or worthwhile.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
And Damon's specific background, being a survivor of child sex abuse,
only exasperated this issue.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Sexuality and my identity were so wrapped up together from
the time, you know, I was a little kid, from
the time I was six years old and I discovered
way too young what sex was, you know, And then
when I was sixteen seventeen and I was starting to
do modeling and commercials and getting so much praise for
the way I look. It's like all of the praise
(08:32):
was like external, and a lot of it came from women.
I remember when I was younger, just like, you know,
I'm sixteen or something and I go over to my
girlfriend's house and their mom would meet me, and their
mom would be like, you know, oh, he's a keeper.
You know, he's so cute, and the mom's looking at me,
you know, wanting to eat me alive. And I loved it.
It was like, oh, wow, I'm really special.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
You know.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
I can see now with hindsight that these women wanted
a piece in me, not so much for me, but
for them. I was the feather in their cap.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
The experience of being objectified is something we often think
of as a more traditionally female experience. It's more rare
that we see this, or at least talk about this
from a male perspective, and it's interesting. Objectification is complicated
because it can feel good to be desired in that way,
and yet when people don't see you as a whole person,
(09:28):
especially in your formative years, that can have lasting negative effects.
Speaker 4 (09:33):
I think it's well publicized that there's sort of this
pretty girl syndrome, but I think it's less well publicized
that there's pretty boy syndrome. In the same way.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
That's our pal journalist Mike Seger.
Speaker 4 (09:45):
It's a little bit of a handicap to be so
pretty because people just come to you, so you don't
develop skills of how to deal with people as well,
and then people are like curious to you you're not
quite sure how they work, because like the rest of us,
have to like give people what they need in order
to get what we want.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
In other words, being really hot can inhibit your ability
to develop certain social skills. It can make you a
bit of an idiot. No offense, as much.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
As I wanted to escape into this world of my addictions,
and that's what Sanctum was above all, was a world
where I could fully engage in sex, drugs, and rock
and roll more like house music, where I could fully
engage in all of that and not only like revel
(10:34):
in it, but sort of be put on a pedestal
for it. For an alcoholic and a sex addict, being
the king of Sanctum was like the ultimate position. At
some point, living that way got to meet.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
We throw around the term sex addict a lot these days.
This idea of a dark, overwhelming sexuality has become a
hot topic in mainstream culture. Hollywood has been increasingly broaching
the subject, For instance, Steve McQueen's critically acclaimed film Shame.
There's also twenty fifteen's Sleeping with Other People, which funnily enough,
(11:11):
is a sex addiction rom com starring Ted Lasso. They
also recently dealt with the topic on season two of
The White Lotus, in which Michael Imperioli's character struggles with
sexual compulsion. And there's one of my favorite films of
all time, Lauras Bontrier's Nymphomaniac. If you like this podcast,
I really insist you watch. And then there's the various
(11:32):
celebrities checking into sex rehabs, both on and off VH one,
like David Duchovny Russell Brand, Tiger Woods, etc. Sex addiction
it's the new trendiest problem. But what does it mean
to be a sex addict? What does that look like?
And can you actually be addicted to sex in the
(11:52):
way you can be with drugs or alcohol? Well, according
to the DSM, you can't. You might be familiar with
the DA if not, it's essentially the Bible of Mental
Health Disorders, used by health professionals in the United States
as an authoritative guide to the diagnosis of mental disorders.
It's periodically updated by the American Psychiatric Association, and for
(12:14):
years people have been arguing about whether sex addiction or
some type of hypersexuality disorder should be included, but it's
nowhere to be found in the most current version. However,
the ICD AKA the International Classification of Diseases, which is
the rest of the world's equivalent to the DSM, recently
(12:35):
did include compulsive sexual behavior disorder. In other words, sex
addiction is a polarizing topic. Additionally, the idea of sex
addiction can be considered problematic because it has been used
to pathologize gay men or to moralize about the use
of pornography, or I'm a sex addict can be offered
(12:55):
as a cop out for not so great sexual behavior.
According to doctor genre Rangalova, the reason we're so divided
on this issue is because we don't understand the problem,
in part because there's so much stigma around sex. Remember
doctor Jhanna is a sex researcher and the Human Sexuality
Professor at NYU.
Speaker 5 (13:15):
The whole concept of sex addiction is so fraught.
Speaker 6 (13:20):
My take on that is that there is no doubt
some people are having sex in ways that are self
destructive and other destructive.
Speaker 5 (13:31):
The difficulty in distinguishing what is what.
Speaker 6 (13:33):
Is that we live in a world that pathologizes the
high end of the sex drive and sexual novelty seeking
spectrum by default that in and of itself, you know
wanting to have sex every day, or wanting to have
sex with multiple people in a lot of these different, new,
kind of crazy, wild environments, that in and of itself
(13:53):
is not a problem.
Speaker 5 (13:55):
There's nothing pathological about.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
That, right, Having a high sex doesn't inherently mean you're
mentally ill. It feels important to note that.
Speaker 6 (14:04):
And yet, because we live in a culture that pathologizes
that end of the spectrum, no matter what, it doesn't
give you a healthy way of doing it.
Speaker 5 (14:14):
All of that lack of proper information training.
Speaker 6 (14:17):
Tools makes them end up doing it in these destructive
ways and excessive ways.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
Essentially, if you want to have a lot of sex
with different people, you're a slut with a problem, you know,
according to society, And because so many people think this way,
if you are one of these slutty people, chances are
that your friends or family or even your partner are
expressing concern about you or treating you like you're a
bad person, and then, unsurprisingly, you're left feeling guilt and
(14:48):
shame about your desires. So basically, the question is how
much of the shame or negativity we feel associated with
sex is inherently ours and how much of it is
a social construct well, it's often difficult to know. And
like we talked about in a previous episode, what happens
when your sexual desires are suppressed for a long time,
(15:10):
but then you open the floodgates, as Damon experienced, you
can kind of go berserk. And according to doctor Jhanna,
that's actually not all that surprising.
Speaker 5 (15:20):
The excessiveness itself can be a product of the repression.
Speaker 6 (15:24):
It's like a kid in a candy store. And if
you keep a kid away from the candy store forever,
they walk by and they see it, like, oh my god,
I want some.
Speaker 5 (15:34):
No, you can't have it. It, can't have it, can't
have it. And then once you let them in, they're
going to eat every single candy in the store. It's
just human nature, you know.
Speaker 6 (15:43):
Just look at binge drinking prevent people from doing it
for a very long period of time, an unreasonable period
of time if you ask the Europeans, and then when
you let them drink, yeah, they're going to drink themselves
to death.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
When talking to Damon about the fragmented you of the
validity of sex addiction, he had a very strong opinion.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
I don't care how it's recognized. Sexuality is something that
can be highly addictive. To think that there is no
sexual compulsion or that it couldn't be an addiction, I
think that's ridiculous because, well, just from my own experience
feeling like it was a compulsion at times, and comparing
that to my addiction or compulsion to alcohol, they are
exactly the same. And the relief I would get from
(16:26):
taking a drink or the relief I would get from
having sex are so similar. When I would take a drink,
I would feel better about myself. I'd feel like, you know,
I'm a little bit more handsome, I'm a little bit
more special, I'm a little bit more whatever. The same
thing would happen with me with sexuality. I would get
that same feeling, that same like ego up boost or whatever.
They're so similar to me. It would be terrible if
(16:46):
there's a stigma on it, like, oh, no, you're not
a sex addict, You're just a fucked up person. I mean,
maybe that's true, but imagine saying that to an alcoholic.
You know, you're not an alcoholic, you just can't stop drinking.
You're a fucking asshole. That's the wrong way of looking
at it.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
I think that makes sense, and like with drinking, if
you have one too many drinks, you might become a
little reckless, less aware of or sensitive to what is
healthy boundary behavior and what's crossing a line, and sexual
compulsion can be the source of a similar type of recklessness.
(17:20):
It's what doctor Jhanna was just saying. Whether you believe
in sex addiction or not, there are definitely people who
are having sex and ways that are self destructive and
other destructive. Damon personally contends that he's never overstepped anyone's boundaries.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
I know in my heart and soul that I was
never abusive towards anybody. I never tried to get anyone
to do anything they didn't want to do. I never, like,
I just didn't do that. I didn't cross any lines.
I mean I felt very desired, you know, if someone
was to have sex with me because they wanted something
from me. I mean, that's not really on me. Everything
(17:55):
I ever did was done with consent and as much
like love and sense quality as I could muster, you know.
And some of it wasn't. I mean, some of it
was just like crazy fucking you know. But as far
as I knew, as far as I was aware of.
That's what we were all there for.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
Of course, our experiences of sex are subjective. Something that's
fun for one person might be kind of off putting
or even scary for another person. We'd be remiss not
to mention that in reporting this podcast, some people didn't
speak very highly of Damon. Some said that he made
them feel uncomfortable or they didn't want to be associated
with him on this show. They have their reasons for that,
(18:36):
and I'll know they didn't want to go on record
to explain those reasons anyway. For Damon, once he was
able to admit to himself that he had a sex
addiction problem, he tried to get some help and so.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
He started to dive into therapy and I think he
was going to go away to this clinic for men.
The guy that ran this clinic is like in this
other state. He got on the phone with Demon and
Damon was telling him about his you know, what was
going on with him. And then the guy was like, wait, wait,
you're Demon from Sanctum. No, we can't take you denied
(19:13):
going to a goddamn like clinic to like heal because
this guy already had these other men and he was
like if you bring this dude in, he might trigger
all of these other guys to relapse because of the
sex club, because of just the access to all of
these women and all of this, like it was just
(19:34):
too easy. So he was denied that access to go
to that place.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
Okay, that's definitely sad, but also objectively kind of funny.
Now Demon wasn't the only one going through a transition.
There was also a major shakeup happening at Sanctum More
gossip after the break. Now, Damon's internal reckoning was happening
(20:11):
as he was being kicked out of the Sanctum mansion.
If you remember when Damon signed the lease on the
mansion in twenty sixteen, the reason he got such a
good deal on the rent was because the house was
said to be demolished, and the owner let Damon move
in while he waited on permits. And thirteen months later
the permits came and soon Damon would have to pack
(20:33):
his things and get out, and that meant he'd also
have to go back to finding a different rental mansion
every month to host the party, which was a ton
of work and clearly not ideal. This transition marked the
end of an era for sanctum and for Damon, but
he took it as an opportunity to pursue a different priority.
(20:54):
While preparing to leave the mansion, he had formulated a
plan to get Melissa back.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
I was really intent on putting my family back together
and trying to go back to my life as it
had been before. It wasn't so much like, oh, I'm
like bored of having sex with beautiful women now. It
wasn't that, but there was certainly a feeling in me
that having my wife back was more important to me
than having sex with lots of people. I spent twenty
(21:21):
years with the love of my life. I have two
kids that there's nothing on the planet that I care about.
I love more than them. I just wanted it back.
I was willing to give up this dream, because when
I walked into the dream, I was willing to give
them up. That's fucking horrible to say, but I have
to cop to it. I was willing to give them up.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
And it's kind of obvious to Melissa at least why
her absence really made Damon reevaluate things.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
I was the matriarch, I was the mother, so to speak,
in a way like I was holding down the house
and how it functioned, and I made our life move
and flow and work all the thousand invisible domestic fucking
things that a woman does that no one sees. I
think Damon and his childhood being so messed up and
(22:11):
not having a great mother, he did not have great
modeling for parents at all, and so when I provided
that for him and then it was gone, I think
that it brought him back to his childhood and that
was very scary. It's very scary for him. You know,
he started as spiral as well, and he got into
a really dark place and you know, would call me
(22:32):
and be so sad or on the floor crying, and
I'm like, you know, I I'm not going to do this.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
Remember by this point, Melissa was dating her old neighbor Billy,
but Damon would not be deterred. He insisted, look, I've changed,
I'm not that guy anymore. And apparently he was pretty convincing.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
And so I broke up with Billy, devastated him, got
back together with Damon, moved into the Saincton Mansion with
the girls, and started to live like this domestic.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
Life there at that house.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
I'm like a fucking crazy n I don't know what
I was doing, but I guess I would have done
anything to keep my family together, literally anything. So I
moved back in and then he's in the shower and
again the phone is on the nightstand and I see
all these fucking texts coming in and he's texting these girls,
and I lost it. I fucking lost it. I opened
(23:32):
the shower door. I'm like, what the fuck, and I
freak out and I show him the phone and he's
like so sorry and so apologetic and like he's standing
there naked and wet, and I'm like, I'm then I'm out.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
I guess old habits die hard. And for Melissa, that
was the final straw.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
Now I can't hold your hands anymore. Like it's time
to grow up and it's time to figure it out
and do the work, and leaving that is actually the
greatest gift you could give that person. Otherwise you're enabling
and they're never going to grow and learn, and neither
are you, for that matter. Like, I was really out
and it was really done, and I never revisited that again.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
I'm sure many of us have been in a situation
like this. You go back to an X and you're
like it's going to be different this time. You're in
the honeymoon phase again and you're having great sex, and
then the old problems reappear, and suddenly you're hit over
the fucking head with all the reasons you left in
the first place. It's like a microcosm of your entire relationship.
(24:38):
But sometimes going back is what provides the clarity you
needed about why this really truly no, actually, this time
it's over. For Damon.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
This was a real wake up call. I was always
conflicted with the reality that I was giving up my
family for this, And once I realized that I could
not have my cake and eat it too, I let
go of sanctum. I stopped drinking the kool aid. I
(25:09):
was looking around, and I was kind of like, you know, hmm,
what are we doing exactly? Is it the kind of
spiritualized eroticism that I was seeking and made this thing
so special? Or is it just money and young girls
and sex and rich guys and just a bunch of
fucking bullshit. At this point, and at some point I
(25:33):
had to admit that that's what it was. For me,
it was official.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
It was time to leave the party.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
At one point, you asked me like, would you let
your daughters go to Sanctum? And I think my immediate
gut reaction was fuck no. And that says a lot
to me too, because you know, these girls that were
working for me were probably you know, in their twenties
and there were kids. As a father, I would never
subject my own kids to that experience. I just would never.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
Mike Sager definitely noticed a duality in Damon.
Speaker 4 (26:06):
He was providing a service for people, There's no doubt
about that. At the same time, he was conflicted about
the service he was providing, and at the same time
he wanted to be loved. It's almost like he's got
this sort of sensitivity that he's pulled toward, like certain
universal truths, and then he like goes too far into
(26:27):
the volcano and he's got to come back out, and
he's creating torture for himself. So it's like he's constantly
in opposition with good Damon and bad Damon.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
Or Damon versus Demon as Damon himself sometimes refers to
this unfortunate reality.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
Just money and power and ego, and I was just
in it. Nothing was enough. It was like the crazier
I got, the more everyone in the mental institution was
just like, you know, cheering me on, like we're all
in this asylum together, and it was like, yeah, get
fucking crazier. You know, you're you're you're the cult leader.
(27:08):
You know, whatever you do, we're gonna do. But around
twenty seventeen, I started to emotionally detach and it's time
for me to get the fuck out of the asylum.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
Now that the veil had lifted for Damon, he had
a new mission. He had to get the club to
a place where he could sell it for what he
thought it was worth, at least seven figures, but there
was some work he had to do to get it
to that place.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
The next year of my life was how do I
separate Damon from Sanctum. How do I make Sanctum someone
that someone could buy? Because Sanctum was Damon. People came
to the events to see Damon, you know, they came
to the events to, like well, to party and have sex.
But like, I was like that guy, and that took
me over a year to just sort of get things
(27:59):
in play so that this was not about me anymore.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
So we mentioned previously that a couple of years into
doing the club back in twenty fifteen, Demon started doing
occasional Sanctum parties in New York, but over time it
started to expand even further. Over the years, they did
one off events in places like Miami and Kiev randomly,
and after leaving the Mansion, Demon was asked to come
through a party in Moscow and he jumped at the offer,
(28:26):
feeling like it could increase the value of the brand.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
Moscow came along, and that was this incredible opportunity to
do something I never dreamed I would ever do. They
were the best parties that Sanctum ever did. The guy
who was kind of funding the whole thing, there was
no price tag. He didn't care what he spent. He
was like an older groc He didn't give a fuck.
So you know, we could spend whatever we wanted to spend.
I don't know what's going on over there on Russia,
but you know, you've got these like beautiful men and
(28:51):
beautiful women, and you fill a room with them and
give them this night of freedom, which they really took
to heart and they really appreciate it more so than
in the United States.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
Damon did six parties in Moscow over roughly the next
year and a half, and around that same time came
another opportunity. He was offered to be the subject of
a docu series for Showtime that centered around his life
and the club. Again, he was like, well, this seems
like it will be good for the brand, so he
went with it. The show, which aired for one season,
(29:24):
was called Naked Sanctum. While it was pitched to Damon
as being more documentary, the result leaned far more reality show.
I only made it through like seventy five percent of
an episode, but our producer Ata Lee's watched the whole
thing and says, never again. It's kind of like The Hills,
but the sex club version. It's very staged, lots of
(29:45):
people who aren't actors trying to act like themselves and failing,
plus an ungodly amount of red lighting. It's basically the
opposite of this podcast, which is obviously very deep and
meaningful and hysterically funny. When you bring up Naked Sanctum
with Damon Now he gets triggered.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
It was all fake and bullshit and set up. The
television show created this sort of like false reality of
what Sanctum was. There was nothing real about it that
was not like the legacy of Sanctum that I wanted
to have.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
When he decided to sign on and do the Naked
Sanctum reality show for Showtime, I freaked the fuck out.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
I was like, no, do not do this.
Speaker 3 (30:23):
It's going to ruin the family. It's going to ruin everything.
We're already divorced. I have these two girls, and I
have to always keep the best interest in alignment, and
Damon is a part of that. So like, that's just
a visual that now the entire world will be able
to see. And I just forecasted a horrible future and
(30:49):
just like a lot of like more bullshit to deal.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
With with people and my kids.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
I didn't want me or him or Mike children to
live under that institution.
Speaker 4 (31:03):
And she was right.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
In fact, the effects of the show were even worse
than she feared.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
Olivia was in sixth grade and was getting teased at school.
She was also getting DMed on social media by submissives
that had been fired from Sanctum who were disgruntled and angry.
And this one girl wrote her Olivia sixth grade, what
a piece of shit her dad is and all of
the things that happened to her at the nightclub, and
(31:33):
Damon is responsible to a little girl, and at that
point we were going to fucking sue everyone on the planet.
I was freaking out and pulled Olivia out of school
because she was having social anxiety, like she couldn't even
go to class anymore. My homeschooled for the rest of
that year. I mean, you fuck with people's kids, and
it's like war.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
I had my children, and I knew that what I
was doing was affecting them negatively. The poster guy for
the sex club. My oldest was about to enter high school,
so I made her a promise, and I said, listen,
when you enter high school, I will have sold Sanctum.
It'll be announced in the press, and you know, it'll
be behind us. If your friends, your friend's parents, you know,
(32:14):
doesn't your dad run like a sex club. You can
say he sold it. He's out of it. He doesn't
do that anymore. So I would say that that was
probably the biggest factor for me to sell Sanctum.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
So, like we said, DEMON spent a long time setting
up the club to be something worth buying, but when
it came time to pull the trigger, it wasn't that simple.
For multiple reasons.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
When I went to start to field offers or the
idea of a sale of Sanctum. It was really hard.
You know, this is not it didn't have a brick
and mortar location because if we would do it in homes,
it wasn't a commercial establishment. So what you were buying
when you were buying Sanctum was you know, a website,
a name, a contact list, and sort of a good idea.
(33:00):
You know, that's what you were buying. And then in
addition to that, you were then faced with, if you
were a legitimate businessman, you were faced with like, wow,
this is risky, you know, like something could go wrong here.
What if someone gets raped? What if someone says I
was sexually harassed? Try getting insurance for a sex club.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
And then there was the issue that there's just a
lot of stigma around sex in general on this hellish
earth that we're living on. Despite Sanctum pulling in millions
of dollars a year, the logistics of managing the financial
component of a sex club could be super annoying and
therefore unsurprisingly not so appealing to buyers.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
And then trying to find someone to run credit cards
for me, traditional banks won't do it. It was really complicated.
I first ran Sanctum using PayPal. I had over thirty
thousand dollars in PayPal to do my next party, and
I was not doing anything wrong in any way. But
we were running a sex club, and so someone at
PayPal I guess at some point looked on the website
(33:58):
and they wrote me a letter and they said, we've
rosen your funds. There's no recourse at all.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
This is truly fucked and something that is actually pretty
common if you're someone who works in any facet of
the sex industry. Financial institutions like Venmo or PayPal can
and do just randomly shot people's accounts without warning or
due process, to the point that the ACLU has actually
gotten involved, saying that PayPal and Venmo targeting and freezing
(34:27):
sex workers accounts is a civil rights issue. Sorry, that's
a bit of a tangent, but I just think it's
worth pointing out how much of a puritanical Big Brother
nightmare that is. But anyway, eventually Demon did get an
offer to buy the club that he couldn't refuse. He
won't disclose what exactly the number was, but it was
reported as being at least seven figures. After more than
(34:49):
six years of running, Sanctum. He officially gave over the reins,
and just to complete the ridiculousness of this whole thing,
Sanctum was purchased by an anonymous inv group the we
refers to itself as the Circle, obviously.
Speaker 3 (35:05):
So he comes over to my house, he sit at
my table and he tells me he's going to sell Sanctum,
and I one part of myself was like relieved, and
I was so happy for him that he could get
out of this thing that I knew kept pulling him
into this dark place and it wasn't healthy for him.
On the other hand, I was like, Okay, so my
support payments are probably going to go down, you know,
(35:27):
like I'm dependent on alimony and child support on a
lot of levels at that point. And I was like, shit,
so that's going to mean I've got up my game
and I've got to figure out, like what am I
going to do to support myself and the girls. All
in all, it come back to our kids, like I
(35:48):
want them to have a healthy, functioning, stable, secure father
that is modeling a good male figure for them, because
now that they're teenagers, they're gonna go find a dude
that's like their dad, Like that's what we do. We
seek out what we saw and were modeled when we
(36:11):
were young. And I'm like, damn it, I don't want
them to really do that. Like I love him on
so many levels, but then his dark shadow site is
also so large and glaring at times.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
I mean, she has a point. Anyway, Damon agrees to
sell Sanctum to this ominous sounding investment group, and I'm
going to kill him for telling me this part of
the story when the mics weren't on But according to Damon,
the circle said they would only pay in cash, so
in order to get the money, he had to charter
(36:48):
a private jet to New York in order to fly
the two suitcases full of cash back to LA. Somehow,
this feels like an appropriate end to his Sanctum journey,
like even the way he sold the place was on
brand for him. And it's also interesting to note the
Demon sold Sanctum in August of twenty nineteen. Six months later,
(37:08):
COVID hit and the club was shot down throughout the
height of the pandemic. Yet again, Damon's dumb luck served
him well. After letting go of the club, Damon did
end up getting help with the issues he was struggling
with and this time he stuck with it.
Speaker 3 (37:24):
He saw a therapist, started to walk that path of
healing from what was a sex addiction. It's kind of
how we have been able to stay amicable and stay
friends now is because I was able to see his pain,
and I know his childhood and I know how he
(37:45):
was raised, and I know what's in him, and so
I was able to see that that's his darkness, that's
his shadow self, and I could compartmentalize and I could
remove that from the person that I know and love
and as the father of my children. It's about being enough,
you know, for anything.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
If you're an.
Speaker 3 (38:06):
Alcoholic, a drug addic, a sex add a chopoholic, whatever
it is, it's like you're filling a void inside yourself
with this outside stuff. But really it's like you have
to work on yourself with are you enough? And then
fill your own cup with your own you know, love
(38:26):
and spirituality, whatever it is. And so I think he's
doing that now.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
Ugh, I feel like you're enough? Is hard? You know,
I got it. What came next for Damon and his
suitcases full of cash was embarking on a period of
sobriety celibacy and single them. I don't know about you,
but I certainly couldn't have predicted that.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
It took years from me to sort of come down
off the Sanctum high and separate myself from Sanctum. You know,
I don't get literally hundreds of messages coming in on
an almost daily basis from women who want to fuck me.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
So I asked, Damon, what does it feel like to
not have that? Now?
Speaker 2 (39:11):
Fantastic? That was like a drug for me. So, you know,
how does it feel for me to not be getting drunk?
I guess I miss it a little bit, but I
love the clarity. I love that I know I'm a
stand up person now I'm I mean, not drinking and
having dealt with the sex addiction. It's completely changed who
(39:32):
I am. So I guess I like myself a lot
more now.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
Next, on our final episode of Sanctum Unmasked.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
You should get collateral on these people. You should hide cameras.
You know you've got these billionaires fucking you know, these girls,
you've got like all these celebrities. If you had that collateral, man,
you'd control Hollywood.
Speaker 6 (39:56):
It encourages you to continue wearing the mask, not literally,
but symbolically for lobsters.
Speaker 3 (40:04):
Right you put them in the water and then it
starts boiling. They don't realize they're in the boiling water
till it's killing them.
Speaker 1 (40:13):
Sanctum Unmasked is the production of School of Humans and
iHeart podcasts. Posted and written by me Carly Schortino. Edie's
Perez is our lead producer and story editor. Amelia Brock
is our senior producer. Sound design, scoring and mixing by
George Hicks. Original music composed by Jesse Niswanger, fact checking
by Austin Thompson. Loco illustration by Linda McNeil. Josh Hook
(40:37):
is 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 Schortina. If you're enjoying the show,
help us get the word out by leaving a rating
in your favorite podcast app. You can keep up with
Damon on Instagram. He's at Father Damon been in next
(41:00):
week
Speaker 4 (41:05):
MHM.
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