This week’s guest Tomek Zdyb is a Polish electronic pop artist with a chemist’s education and a dancer’s heart, bringing to this episode of In the Key of Q a rare combination of analytical clarity and emotional courage that feels both refreshing and necessary.
Context and Importance
Poland – a country that, despite decriminalising homosexuality in 1932 (decades before the UK’s 1968 shift), remains deeply influenced by Catholicism and what Tomek describes as a “postwar impact that is rooted in our minds” around masculinity. Growing up in this environment meant that for many young queer people like Tomek, even the language to describe themselves was absent. “I do not recall knowing the gay word from anywhere,” he explains. “How can you accept something if you don’t know the term?”
‘The absence of language becomes a form of erasure. When Tomek notes that he learned about gay people primarily through pornography – “and it kills me to call pornography as knowledge” – he touches on a universal wound in queer experience: the hypersexualisation that often stands in where representation should be.’
Key Insights from the Conversation
In the episode, Tomek’s talks about sex addiction – a topic he identifies as “the most difficult chapter in my life.” With remarkable clarity, he unpacks how addiction of any kind becomes a release mechanism for emotions both positive and negative, and how pornography became “attached to me from the early days.” The misconceptions around sex addiction – that it must be enviable rather than devastating – echo societal failures to take seriously addictions that don’t fit neat categorisations.
Tomek’s journey through identity crisis – sincerely falling in love with a woman while knowing he was attracted to men – offers another layer of complexity. Rather than framing this as deception or confusion, he speaks of it as genuine love that evolved into something more familial, carrying grief and guilt for a relationship that couldn’t continue as it began.
“I felt guilty. She was my biggest friend, and yet I was not able to tell her this one secret. And even when we finished the relationship, it took me a very long time to forgive myself. Hurting the person that I truly loved.”
Why This Episode Matters
In an era where LGBT+ rights face renewed threats globally – so much so that Tomek and Dan discuss American friends asking about refuge options – these conversations become lifelines. When Tomek asks, “Is there a safe place for us?” and jokes, “Maybe we should land on the moon,” the concern behind the joke is real.
Yet through music, Tomek has found not only therapy but purpose. From someone who describes his teenage self as “no one… the only thing I had was the gay porn and nothing else,” he has emerged as an artist committed to breaking taboos and encouraging others to speak up.
For listeners navigating their own complex relationships with identity, addiction, or isolation, Tomek’s honesty in this episode offers both mirror and possibility – proof that it’s possible to speak the previously unspeakable, and in doing so, find relief.
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