An investigation into the legacy of post-communist Romania’s first sex mag.
Self-proclaimed misogynist and far-right influencer Andrew Tate moved to Romania in 2017 partly inspired by the country’s reputation amongst his political tribe for the laxness of law enforcement and the submissiveness of its women. “Romania is a beautiful place”, he told his followers, in praise of its ‘resistance’ to the ‘woke’ West: “there’s no feminists, there’s no open homosexuality”.
In 2023, contrary to their expectations, the Tate Brothers were formally indicted on a number of charges relating to sexual exploitation of women and human trafficking (which they denied). The case, which has gone through several twists and turns since, and been added to by allegations in the US and UK, has become a cause célèbre in the global right-wing ‘manosphere’. Tate has become the emblem of toxic masculinity. Romania has found itself in the crosshairs: did it turn out to be the soft touch for sexual predators that the Tates seemed to think it was?
Romania’s reputation as a playground for wealthy sexpats takes us right back to its wild ‘90s. In the decade after Ceauşescu’s execution, post-socialist Romania underwent neoliberal shock therapy. Radu Jude and Christian Ferencz-Flatz’s recent film Eight Postcards from Utopia (2024) captures the surreal chaos of capitalist transition, where desires long suppressed violently erupted and were turned into commercial products, while reinforcing gender stereotypes.
Oana Filip’s article for Scena9, with collages by Oana Barbonie, dives into the grimy world of Romania’s first sex mag. It unravels the story of Infractoarea Mov (The Purple Offender) and its confusing legacy of balancing satirical humour with trivialising violence against women. (Coming with a trigger warning, the article pulls no punches—but rest assured, Dear Reader, Translator will spare you of the worst.)
Filip, born in 1994, recalls small-town kiosks selling porn magazines—Playboy and Hustler—but not Infractoarea, a once-popular weekly with a print run of 800,000, now largely forgotten. The author follows its seedy trail, expecting a funny, maybe cringe-worthy story. She finds herself instead grappling with Romanian society and its deep-seated misogyny. While the subject of sex had been taboo under socialism, Infractoarea (the feminine form of “criminal” or “offender”) centres around the sexist fantasy of a man-eating, nymphomaniac femme fatale.
Infractoarea’s seductive formula—blood and guts, naked women, dark humour—hit a nerve. Its appeal was a “crazy combination of sex, humour, violence, chaos, and cynicism.” Filip suggests the brutal sexualisation is both entertaining and unsettling, reflecting the anarchic spirit of the time. Infractoarea published articles like ‘The Sadistic Confession: A Slave for the Peace of the Vulva’ and ‘Genital Melancholy, the Scream of Ejaculation’.
One provocative text is illustrated with a blonde with her legs spread. A glued-on post-it barely serves as a fig leaf, next to a cartoon cowboy with a penis-shaped lasso. Another caricature portrays a man having sex with multiple inflatable dolls under the pretence he wants to buy one. It gets darker: graphic scenes of rape, murder, incest, and paedophilia, encapsulated with the slogan: ‘Smile! Tomorrow will be worse.’ Racist, anti-Romani and homophobic jokes follow.
The mastermind behind the magazine was the playwright Denis Dinulescu who wrote its dating column and gave advice to readers as agony aunt Gabriela. Another character, Immanuela, named after his cat, wrote dating ads. The editors ended up receiving thousands of letters, and later wedding invitations. According to the son of the first editor-in-chief, Infractoarea’s office was a dingy basement full of cigarette smoke, like a set from a movie by Cristi Puiu.
Though the journalists used pseudonyms, Filip managed to track some down. Cristina Topolski created the visual design, collaging cut-outs and scans from other publications. She said gender was irrelevant at Infractoarea—she was just doing her job, feminism was never discussed. Early critics condemned the magazine’s exploitative portrayal of women as both victim and vamp, simultaneously sexualised and subjected to extreme violence.
Infractoarea did of course not exist in a vacuum. In a patriarchal and traditional society, misogyny and sexual violence are often trivialised. As one interviewee put it, rape is framed as the woman’s fault, “because look at how she dresses, aaah, well then that means she asked for it.” Headlines like “The bitch, until she raises her tail, the dog won’t go to her!” reflect such sentiments.
Writing the story of Infractoarea, the author was in a constant “mental ping-pong”. Catching herself smiling at the story ‘The Killer Omelette’ about a man who kills his wife because she made omelette instead of steak, “I wondered how ethical that was, what that says about me as a person.” Is Infractoarea an amusing relic from another universe or a misogynist mouthpiece? Difficult to say.
It’s quick to get desensitised to Infractoarea’s violence and porn, maybe even captivated by it. But it was also a breath of fresh air after decades of sexual repression and heavily censored public discourse. In many ways, Infractoarea normalised talking about sex for many Romanians.
The author even glimpses sparks of female emancipation in its pages. In the column ‘Modern Lexicon of the Happy Couple’ we find the “little bud”—the clitoris. There’s also helpful advice: “Flirtation is an important part of emancipation, through which the woman wants to express: ‘My body belongs to me entirely. I decide what to do with it.’” A story about a horny mum is titled: ‘Screw the kids, I have my life!’
So what is Infractoarea’s legacy today? While printed magazines have mostly disappeared, pornography has moved to the internet which, as Filip states, can make Infractoarea look like a retirement magazine. The “women only” weekly is long gone but its digital offspring is one click away. Less loony perhaps.
IJ
Original article by Oana Filip, ‘Femei dezbrăcate și cadavre la chioșcul de ziare. Infractoarea, o revistă cum n-o să mai vezi’ (Naked Women and Corpses at the Newsstand: “Infractoarea,” a Magazine Like No Other) was first published at Scena9 on 18 March 2025.
It is available here.
Oana Filip is a Romanian reporter passionate about rural life, cats, and existential questions.
Scena9 is an independent outlet about cultural life in Romania and beyond.
