Pushing the boundaries of consent, ethics, and storytelling.

Experienced: December 14, 2017
Location: The L’Cheriyve Studio
Address: 620 W 135th St, Gardena, CA 90248
Price: $155
Audience Size: 8
Runtime: ~120 minutes
More Information: The Lust Experience site, Noah Sinclair site, Instagram, Facebook

There are so many things to talk about with The Lust Experience mid-season event Anointment I’m not even sure where to start. Most of this will be a walkthrough of what I saw with some commentary after talking to others about the experience:

A week before Anointment - multiple venue rumor:

The tickets for the event we purchased were billed as a “one-of-a-kind, magnanimous and altruistic celebration of life, love and harmony”. That’s about as vague as it gets but those of us following along with the ongoing story began to hear rumors of two different events.

An actress, Stephanie, from The Tension Experience (last season’s show) confided in some friends/participants that she was sad she wasn’t asked to be in Anointment. Days later she later revealed that she was, indeed, going to be in an event but it wasn’t going to be Anointment and it was apparently in a different venue. Some started to assume the show we signed up for was a front, or diversion, for a more sinister event going on at the same time that she would be a part of.

Emails went out to participants with a waiver and instructions. One of the instructions was not to reveal our starting point to anyone until the show’s run was over. People started speculating that we’d be going to one of the two rumored events. How would they choose who goes where? How would we carpool without telling others in our group where we were going?

We were already confused and on edge before the event even started.

A week before Anointment - email from a group that intercepted our receipts for tickets to Anointment

The Midnight Commission started as a separate ARG experience and was later revealed (much to the chagrin of some in the LA immersive theater community) to be a part of The Lust Experience world. They are a group, led by Morgan, dedicated to expose the OSDM (who was putting on Anointment).

Participants were sent an email from the Midnight Commission telling us that the OSDM are liars and that we were to wear a masquerade mask. Some of us were not sure if everyone was supposed to wear a mask or only those part of the Midnight Commission.

Noah Sinclair (arguably the main character thus-far in The Lust Experience) cleared up to those of us on Slack that we should all wear masks. Noah hadn’t been confirmed as part of the Midnight Commission so the request was a bit confusing to some of us… but we’ve learned to accept confusion throughout the whole season!

Anointment - the preshow:

The morning of we all got an email of our meeting location from Timothy Granik of the OSDM. We also later got an email from the Midnight Commission telling us that the OSDM is lying to us and reiterating to wear a mask as well as wearing layers.

Approaching the location was nerve wracking for a couple of reasons: 1) I’d never been anywhere in this area for a show making it that much more suspect and 2) I was not sure if I would be the only person showing up at this location.

I felt a little at ease when I saw other cars in the parking lot but as this was opening night everyone was very quiet and to themselves. Almost as if they were afraid to talk about why they were there in this parking lot dressed up. After some awkward moments I broke the ice and asked if they were here for Anointment and we started talking.

Shortly after Morgan (from the Midnight Commission/BOS) walked into the parking lot, gathered us around, and told us that he had intercepted the shuttle driver for the event we were originally going to and that we would be going to something else. He gave us some hand signals and secret handshakes that the OSDM used amongst themselves to identify each other. We were to infiltrate this event and be on the lookout for anything unusual and report back to him.

We boarded the shuttle and were not quite sure if we were allowed to talk or not. The whole vibe was one of anticipation and intrigue. None of us knew quite what we were getting ourselves into and it was almost as if we didn’t want to acknowledge it.

Anointment - lounge:

The shuttle drops us off and we are patted down and have to perform one of the hand signals or secret handshakes before lining up to go inside. We were lined up in a single file line and let in one at a time every couple of minutes. The wait to go inside is anxiety inducing.

Once inside I am told to sit on one of the couches near the stage. On the way up a few stairs I’m greeted by a couple asking me if I’m looking to have a good time. They hand me a pill when I nod. Not wanting to break my cover I pop the pill in my mouth.

I see a woman in red on the stage singing. I swear it’s Sabrina (Addison from The Tension Experience) but as I get closer I realize it’s not. After all of us are seated a woman who would be our hostess through most of the evening gave us some ground rules. We were told we could leave whenever we wanted. She tells us that we weren’t chosen to be here for our looks or our brains. She asks one of us to stand up in front and tells her to take the top of her dress off. She is reluctant but after pressing the issue she complies. She’s visibly angry and quickly pulls her dress back up. This definitely sets the tone and puts all of us on edge from here on out.

As we leave the area we were instructed to leave one piece of clothing behind so we could feel like a different person. I heard on other nights a lot more than one piece of clothing had to be left behind in this first scene but I got away with leaving my suit jacket.

We are told to have a drink at the bar and mingle. As we turn around to leave we see about a dozen people hanging out in the lounge just staring at us. It was quite an intimidating scene and I wasn’t sure where to go or who to approach. There were several men and women in masks fully nude just hanging out. I picked up a drink from the bar and people started approaching me.

I was trying to talk to some of the familiar characters from the story so far but kept getting pulled away. One girl wanted to dance and as we did she asked me why she hasn’t ever seen me around. I told her I was new. Trying to fit in was definitely on my mind but I wasn’t doing a great job of it. Mason commented to me that I looked lost. Sabrina recognized me from Ascension and preempted my line of questioning by telling me flat out that she didn’t want or need to be saved and she was perfectly fine there.

Anointment - dining/desires room:

Our hostess rang a bell and gathered our group around to enter the next room. We were told to sit at a dinner table and to choose carefully where we sat. What followed was an interesting and awkward game of pairing up, revealing secrets, staring into the eyes of a “partner”, swapping partners, feeding a strawberry, and deciding what item of clothing the other should remove.

At one point I was told to stand up and the hostess brought over a handler named Skye. As I was told to look into Skye’s eyes the hostess made her strip off her clothes and face the rest of the table to moan. After she was told to get dressed she ran off to another room.

I was quickly pulled into the room by a man going by Deacon while Skye was getting dressed. He started yelling at me and took me a moment to realize why. He accused me of looking at his girlfriend inappropriately when she was standing in front of me undressed. Skye quickly tried to calm him down reminding him if “they” find out about their fling that bad things would happen. Deacon calmed down a bit and confided in me that he was on edge tonight because he hadn’t heard from his brother the whole night. His brother was apparently the shuttle driver that Morgan had intercepted to smuggle us into this event. I kept my mouth shut about that.

As I was pulled back into the dining room area it seemed like several had moved on to something else while others were blindfolded. I was given a blindfold as well and we were asked questions about desire and lust in an introspective scene. We had to reveal one desire to the group and, although we didn’t know it, this was presumably used as input into who was ultimately going to be anointed.

From here I was asked to sit on a chair with another individual and we were told about a device used to take readings of locations and she described the readings for where we were at as being just normal. It was unclear what the readings were actually for. We were then led into a hallway passing by what sounded like a running shower and some other rooms that were buzzing with activity.

Anointment - Rico room:

We walked into a room that looked like an entertainment room where Rico greeted us and proceeded to do a line of coke. This set the tone immediately for what people ended up calling the “Rico Room”. Most, if not all, of the guys who were not chosen to be anointed ended up hanging out in this room for a bit. He plays a drinking game with shots and very badly wanted us to get naked and masturbate together. He talked a bit about being a clockmaker and asked a male handler for some elephant penis. The handler comes in later with a huge cooked sausage looking thing. Rico asked me to try it, I did, and it was delicious. He then asked us to come up with something, anything, to order because they could procure anything we desired. We came up with something disgusting because Rico seemed to want that.

At one point Rico put his back to the camera that was obviously filming the room we were in and told us that they were watching everything. He seemed to be trying to warn us of something but because of the drugs and alcohol the details are a blur. He then made us watch some 70s porn on his TV before he tried one last time to get us all to take off our pants. Frustrated with us he got naked faster than I thought possible and stormed out of the room leaving his clothes on the couch.

Anointment - ceremony room:

Our hostess came by asking where Rico went and we said he ran off. She seemed perplexed and almost reluctantly led us through the hallway and into a large room with a bed. A man and a woman were in the bed nude under the covers and were told to leave. We were told to hang out for a bit before the ceremony began.

Me and another girl were immediately led to a room (while others were led elsewhere) that appeared to be some sort of dungeon or torture room. A woman described to us what the room was used for as she acted out the process on us. She said that the ultimate high can be obtained by injecting yourself with the blood of someone dying while simultaneously aroused and terrified. She blindfolded me, attached my wrists to the chains hanging on the wall, and proceeded to simulate slicing my neck open. She then captured the blood from my neck and walked over to the girl sitting on the bed. She was then injected with my blood.

After this scene was over we were led back into the main ceremony room and I noticed Stephanie. The same Stephanie that was happy to be included in the second, alternate show, further solidifying to those of us in the know that we were not at the original show we intended to go to. She told me a story about a kid in a park about to be kidnapped asked the questions ‘would you want to watch a movie? or would you like to play with legos?’ She mentioned that this was a false choice since both options were bad for the kid. She asked if I thought life was sometimes like that filled with false choices. She then said she felt tired and laid down on the sad mattress we were on sitting in the back of the room. There was another mattress similar nearby presumably for another girl. There was something unsettling about the dirty mattresses, without any linens on them, lying on the ground. It gave me the impression that these girls were here living against their will in squalor. Stephanie’s manic, confused, and paranoid behavior didn’t help.

Anointment - anointment ceremony:

We were gathered around the main bed near the entrance to the room. A woman dressed in red, whom some of us assumed was Noah’s mother Cecilia, was leading the ceremony with another man some of us recognized as Tom Barrow (who posed as Addison’s father throughout The Tension Experience) and later revealed to be Timothy Granik.

The anointment ritual we are about to witness was pretty twisted. Two people from our group, a man and a woman, were chosen and taken down a completely unique path than the rest of us, and from each other, to prepare for the ceremony. They were traveling through various rooms getting dolled up (or dolled down depending on how you look at it) so they would be ready for what happens next.

The man and woman are brought into the ceremony room and taken to the bed. They were dressed in loincloths (and in other ceremonies sometimes completely nude) and were told to lay down next to each other. Cecilia and Timothy began what was easily the most awkward, humorous, humiliating, and non sensual portion of the night. They were basically telling the two to have sex in front of all of us in hopes of conceiving the OSDM god Anoch. Or at least that’s how I interpreted it.

The performance anxiety was real for the two on the bed as the rest of us just watched in horror. Timothy asked incredulously ‘how come he’s not hard yet??’ and just as he was about to get one of us onlookers to help the guy out with that Noah Sinclair came bursting into the scene.

Noah got up on the bed and was disgusted with us, his mom, and with what was going on. He gave us a speech about how two complete strangers having sex in the name of Anoch was not right. He implied that we all leave and that a conception based on love was the only way to godliness.

Anointment - awkward cool down period:

We were led into a small room with a bucket of all of our clothes on the ground where we were told to get dressed. Here we all compared notes while awkwardly getting dressed. We were then escorted back to our cars by a man in a suit. Walking back we realized just how close we were to where we parked despite the confusing path we took in the shuttle to the venue.

Consent

Those going through the event were told that we were being smuggled in (so to speak) so we had to fit in and do what we were told. Anyone not complying would likely blow their cover and get ejected (or worse). This coupled with many guests not given an actual safeword to use throughout the experience compounds the blurred lines of consent.

Most everyone I heard were at least told that they could leave as they pleased and I understand bringing an explicit safeword into the mix may not fit the story perfectly if this wasn’t supposed to be a “public event” in the first place so I get why a safeword wasn’t stated.

All of this would be a moot point if this show didn’t have salacious situations in spades.

Ethics & Morality

Some were asked to take a good portion of their clothes off. Others were asked to call a random person from their call history to reveal a sexual desire or secret. A few were occasionally asked to kiss complete strangers (other participants). It’s hard to tell how many people felt obligated to do things out of fear of getting kicked out but some seasoned vets definitely stood their ground at times and were not kicked out or forced to do anything they didn’t feel comfortable with.

There was definitely a lot to discuss here with other participants and some boundaries were pushed and exceeded. I am sure every single person that went through Anointment has something to say about the lines crossed.

Differing intensity levels

For the most part the night I went was relatively tame as it sounds like many (if not all) participants for the remaining nights were asked to undress beyond a usual level of comfort amongst strangers.

When I went shoes were an acceptable piece of clothing to discard whereas other nights shoes, ties, and undershirts didn’t count. The two people chosen to be anointed were many times asked to undress completely and complete the show in the buff. Those in the nude were frequently interacting with other participants throughout the show. I highly doubt many expected that type of intimacy with other participants.

Expectations for new participants

I find it interesting that this show was so unlike all of the events leading up to it. They successfully lived up to the expectations of what people think of when you say you’re going to “The Lust Experience” but for some reason the content (mostly participant nudity) came as a shock to me. There was little to no sexual content in the shows and storylines leading up to Anointment. I’m extremely curious about the direction this heads as there may be some new attendees who are expecting the next show to go even further. I’m thinking there’s not much further it can go right??

Experience for those closely following the story

It felt like the show was built mostly for onboarding new participants as there wasn’t a lot in the path I was on that furthered the ongoing story. I believe one person per show got a one on one with Noah while the rest of us only saw him briefly in the finale. Depending on which host/hostess you got you may not have seen Sabrina or Mason (I was fortunate to see both briefly in the lounge).

Wrap Up

The Powers That Be/Creators have delivered yet another thought provoking, boundary pushing, controversial experience. Taken by itself as a stand alone experience I can’t say I necessarily loved it but I don’t think I’ve talked so much about a show ever. There were so many different experiences to be had that it’s impossible to judge it or know all that went on in there without talking to hundreds of people. The attention to detail and variation is staggering especially for a show that only ran for 4 nights.

I also had a wonderful opportunity to see the show it in a completely different light my second time through read about it here.