No Such Thing as a Free Orgy

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, and that includes sex. The uber wealthy don't have to tragically doomswipe on dating apps to find a stranger to

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.

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, and was now getting hundreds of applications for every event, from which they'd select the most desirable hundred, so an

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 the ones that seemed like they were going to be the most right for it, and generally those were the

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 inappropriate resume.

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

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, but something about privilege can make people think they get to act however the fuck they want.

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.

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 apply to sex parties, minus the stuff about baked goods.

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

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 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.

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 me from boyhood to manhood. And so I just came up with this thing.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 elementary school.

We'd have to teaseta in the paper.

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.

So what did this fancy scroll say anyways?

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.

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. 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

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

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 responded to this, Like a ton of people bought these Dominant memberships. Yet again, this crazy idea was working.

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 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

Much k.

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.

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.

I mean, quite honestly, the person who was being initiated would have a threesome.

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?

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.

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. They list the price of an hour of their time, and then within that time, consenting adults can do whatever

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

You know?

They would tell me everything.

And apparently they often provided some great gossip.

There was one where the gentleman requested a strap on and afterwards I say, so, how you know, how was it?

They're always it was great.

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.

Like, oh, you know.

Like, oh wow, that's incredible. I didn't even I just didn't think that.

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 the disgustingly wealthy. And if you're disgustingly wealthy, you don't want to be mistaken for some tragic super wealthy person

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

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. And for this you get legit, all you get is a ring.

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 in a Rolls Royce. Luckily, I don't give a fuck, but many, many, many people do. This is our society,

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 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

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.

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 of the party Once you're inside.

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 the people that you might really want to fuck when you go to a sex party, but they have the

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.

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 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.

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 little complicated.

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 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

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 how he'd sometimes rent mansions from annoying rich guys who then feel entitled to act like douchebags at the party

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.

To you with this?

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.

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?

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 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.

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 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

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.

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 sold for upwards of ten thousand dollars and getting to keep most of the money. It seemed worth it, even exciting,

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.

Liked it beyond just the opportunity to meet celebs. It also felt transgressive in a way that was kind of thrilling.

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 past that stupid barrier that society placed.

On this, you would look at everything differently.

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.

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. But because there's oas a butt, these things can get

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.

So now what does that mean? Do they own you? Then?

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.

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.

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.

Me was so frightening about that aspect of the club.

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, and that further blurred the boundaries of consent, of what's

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 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

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.

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 not based on a deep connection to people around me. It's not based on you know, me being like a

And ultimately, he was missing the things he valued most.

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.

Next on Sanctum Unmasked.

But I didn't realize that anything was wrong. Neither did he. You know, we just thought this is normal.

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.

He just thought he was always above the law or above that kind of authority, and he made a lot of enemies there.

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 Gibson as our recording engineer. Recorded at iHeart Studios in