In modelling, people have agreed to some things and then kept it quiet. My boundaries were crossed too

You returned to Poland in 2017. Did you become too old to model?

No. I had a very successful year, a lot of contracts. But one day I was offered a campaign for a great brand, I looked at the message and felt it was boring. I needed a change because modelling no longer made me happy. At that moment I received a proposal to participate in ‘Dancing with the Stars’ in Italy and ‘Asia Express’ in Poland. I decided on Poland. I needed stability, roots, a home, a dog, love, a child.

You took part in ‘Asia Express’, became popular and fell into the celebrity world.

People began to recognise me, and I actually found myself in a world that I knew only theoretically, that I didn’t understand at all.

What didn’t you understand?

Ideas, values, nuances, games. The celebrity world is a house of cards that you have to build for yourself very carefully, because it can easily collapse. There have been a number of powerful players who have been in that position for years, and they are very defensive about it.

Is this about fame?

Fame and money. Vanity. I thought I knew what I was doing, but it turned out that I still had a lot to learn, although I didn’t want to function in it full-time.

Is the male perspective different? In this world that still operates on well-entrenched, patriarchal stereotypes, it is women who are usually judged through the lens of beauty. It is women, especially in the industries we are talking about, who are treated as objects.

On the one hand, models are objects of desire. They are objectified. And it doesn’t matter if it’s a boy or a girl, because the treatment is similar. Paradoxically – patriarchy again – it is easier for a woman to confess that she has been abused. Even though I know it’s still excruciatingly difficult.

Why?

A man touched by another man must admit that he has been touched in the wrong way. If it happened – what does it say about him when he allowed it to happen at all? He’s weak. This is the essence of patriarchy.

It harms everyone equally.

What’s happening in this world with men is exactly the same as in women’s stories from 20, 30 years ago. Since then, women have emancipated themselves, put their value on the line – thankfully – and the #MeToo movement is both a caesura and proof of that.

Before #MeToo there was no discussion. All abuse in the psycho-sexual space is sexual abuse, this also includes guys. There doesn’t have to be penetration to talk about rape.

People who experienced harassment feel shame. And they feel guilty. That’s why they rarely talk about it.

It’s a world in which – I’ll say it very colloquially – you sleep your way to many things. In the industry these are known topics, people talk about it openly. I have heard some people repeat: ‘If I had to, I’d sleep with him’.

Is this okay?

Everyone has their own morals, I can’t enter into a discussion with that because maybe it’s okay for some people. For me it’s not.

I once heard from a guy: ‘After all, we all like sex, I don’t see why we shouldn’t make some money from it’. Are you a crystal untainted by moral corruption?

Yes, I am. But I’m not an innocent, I’ve provoked some situations at times, though I usually met more experienced, skilled players who were more familiar with these meanderings.

In the book ‘Backstage’, which you wrote with Magdalena Kuszewska, you don’t give the people who appear in it a gender. Is it because you didn’t speak publicly about your sexual orientation at the time?

I didn’t want to talk about it. Not everything is for sale.

But here we are three years later, you recently posted pictures on Instagram with your boyfriend, now the perspective is different.

People knew I was gay anyway. I didn’t want gender to distract attention from the story and what was really important. Let me give you an example. I went to a casting for a big company that had a new creative director. A casting for a fashion show. It’s my turn, I see him, we look into each other’s eyes and we feel there is the spark. It freezes you inside, you forget how to speak. It’s my turn, he takes my portfolio, I know he likes me, I don’t know to what extent it is privately and to what extent I fit his concept, I feel it’s both. He hands me a jacket, I put it on, he says, ‘Great’, and I walk out in it, forgetting about my portfolio. He picked me for the show, I went for a fitting, it’s professional, but there’s tension. On the day of the show, very discreetly, he invites me for coffee. I feel like it because I like him, but I feel an inner conflict because it’s a work-related situation. When situations like this happened before, I backed away from them right away.

Did you have that coffee?

Wait. I think: it’s just coffee, let’s meet. We exchanged telephone numbers, he gave me the address of the café. I arrive five minutes early, I look around – there is no café. He shows up and says, ‘Come on, let’s go’. I resist and say it was supposed to be coffee, to which he replies that he is inviting me upstairs to brew it. Again, I have a conflict because I feel it’s not okay, but at the same time I think: it’s just coffee and just a flat, I’m a big boy. If he does anything against my wishes, I’ll just leave. He makes coffee, we exchange a few words, and then very pushily he is all over me. I say, ‘Wait, take it easy. I didn’t come to fuck, I came to get to know you’.

Did you leave?

He apologised, said he understood his mistake. We started talking, he apologised again, as an apology he invited me to dinner.

Did you go for it?

I felt in a pickle because I had overstepped my boundaries, I felt remorse for not behaving appropriately. Although, theoretically, nothing much happened. Anyway, I think a lot of these stories we learned in the course of the #MeToo movement had a similar resonance for the victims, though I’m not comparing myself to them: people were afraid of professional consequences. They agreed to some things and then kept it quiet.

This is a classic violence mechanism.

Yes, it stems from power and control. Of course there is a dependency between the designer or creative director and the models. And of course it is sometimes used and abused. I decided to go to this dinner, the guy did the same thing as before. I said I wasn’t interested in sex, I was interested in a relationship, so if he had other needs, we said goodbye. He apologised again.

I ended up leaving the restaurant. And he got offended and blocked me from that company. I never worked for them again.

The #MeToo campaign started in 2017, which is when you returned to Poland. Did you feel relieved to be able to talk about your experience?

No, because I totally didn’t understand what had happened. These situations were so uncomfortable for me that I couldn’t deal with them. And at the same time, I’ve read about women who were hurt far more. I wasn’t raped or physically penetrated. Compared to these women, my situations were delicate. Maybe this is because even though I thought I didn’t know how to set boundaries, I set them. I was in a different life and material situation. I thought I had no right to feel used. It wasn’t until I met you and we talked about it that I realised these situations are no different. It’s all about power, control and abuse everywhere.

We live in a country where masturbation is a sin and a relationship between two guys is immediately hell. Twenty years ago, when we were teenagers, you used to tell your mum you were staying the night at my place and slept at your boyfriend’s. You were scared.

Yes, it happened several times. If a child is sensitive and pays attention to what the environment is saying, and hears: ‘Oh, look, two queers, I wonder which one is the woman and which one is the man’, it stays in him, it echoes strongly later in a gay teenager. These kinds of messages get encoded in us and our perception of reality is not really ours, but of the environment we come from. We can get rid of this, but it takes work.

Back to the topic of #MeToo: today my reaction would have been different. And you know what, I’ve been watching the Bond series lately. Bond is a misogynistic dick – I’m talking about those old films. But 20 years ago, when you watched it with your parents, did you get that feeling? No, you didn’t. We’re maturing. I want a different world for my children.

Would you like to raise your child in Poland? I have my mother, my grandmother, my roots here, but it is also very difficult.

My impression is that except maybe Scandinavia and the Netherlands, it’s the same everywhere.

You say this from the perspective of a long time spent in Italy, China, the United Arab Emirates.

I’m often in Cyprus because that’s where Giulio, my partner, is from. And, you know, we’ve had a lot of conversations about how some people around him react to our relationship, and it basically revolved around the fact that maybe we shouldn’t be so overt about our feelings after all, because it’s going to ruin his career.

And what do you say then?

Kundera wrote: imagine talking to a fool who claims to be a fish. I withdraw from such confrontations, because it cannot be explained. I’m not going to prove that people aren’t fish. But the people around my boyfriend were putting such things in his head. He soaked it up, began to have doubts. And all this is happening in Cyprus, where civil partnerships have been legalised...

I am a guy from the capital city, from an intellectual home, who was educated in Warsaw, London, New York and Oxford – all of which gave me great resources. So I know that for a boy from a small town, everything is harder. I know what’s appropriate and what’s not, ‘how to behave’, but that also results in you falling into the trap of what’s not appropriate.

Today, is there anything you shouldn’t do?

No. I don’t think in those terms anymore, I have a different mindset now: do I think it’s good. And that’s all. A few months ago I was with my mum – it was a very hot day – at a ‘nice’ place for lunch. We were sitting in the backyard, I was wearing a rather skimpy tank top. At some point my mum says to me, ‘I’m not sure you’re dressed right’. ‘But what do you mean?’, I ask. ‘Well you’re a bit naked, those people around you might be uncomfortable’.

What did you say?

That it was their problem. My top and how I look was my business. And mum said, ‘I’m old and I won’t educate you, but you shouldn’t educate me either’. And I think we have to educate our parents a little bit. And mature together so that when a kid comes home and says he loves his boyfriend, he feels safe.

Piotr Czaykowski, head of Chili Models modelling agency, celebrity manager. A graduate of journalism at the University of Warsaw. For ten years after graduation, he travelled the world, working as a top model for top fashion houses: Armani, Dolce & Gabbana, Brunello Cucinelli, Etro, Cavalli, Prada, Tod’s or Tom Ford. He has visited over 70 countries and lived in Milan, London, Hong Kong, Dubai, Beijing, New York and Singapore. Co-founder of American-Spanish-Polish start-up Faceonized. Author of ‘Backstage’

Author: Anna J. Dudek

Photo: Urszula Dębska

The text was published in „Wysokie Obcasy” a magazine of „Gazeta Wyborcza” on 20 November 2021