This series is a part of our ongoing featured topic: LOVE. For this curated collection, we have invited contributors to delve into their perspectives on Love in Today’s Relationships.

What is your definition of love?

“It may sound cliché, but we believe that love can be defined in many ways. The most important thing to us is being good friends. Our love is mainly based on friendship and support, so we can’t even imagine loving someone we don’t want to be friends with. We also believe that the key to a healthy love is complementing each other, because every black cat needs their golden retriever.” – Artem & Bartek

What makes commitment in today’s world different or similar to before?

“I can answer this question from the perspective of my own life, where at the turn of the decade, we can already see a huge difference in what gay love looks like in Poland. When I met my first partner at the age of 15, our love was very secret. There was a lot of fear that others would not accept us. All our love was for us and our close friends who supported and accepted us. Over the last 12 years, the world has made enormous progress. This is especially visible in Poland, and specifically in Warsaw, where I live. For 5 years, I co-organized the Warsaw Equality Parade (Warszawska Parada Równości), which largely contributed to a change in the perception of homosexual people, but not only that. Of course, it was largely influenced by the West, including films, books, TV series, and politicians who have been talking a lot in recent years about respect and normalization of the topic of homosexual people and sex workers. Thanks to this, I now see that more and more people do not have to hide and can fully be themselves, both in their hearts and in sexual aspects. Going back to the origins of ancient Greece, nudity, sex, and eroticism were everyday life.” – Mateusz

Photographer: Mateusz Jaskot
Art direction: Artem Vorobiov
Models: Bartosz Stachurski, Artem Vorobiov