Want to know more about the culture of sex in Moldova?
This landlocked, former Soviet, nation squashed between Ukraine and Romania is the poorest nation in Europe and the least visited. Known for being the second most boozy country in the world (behind Belarus), it isn’t a top tourist destination but it does have plenty to offer. One of the world’s top wine producers, the climate here is mild in the winter with long hot and dry summers. Rich with culture and tradition, the tourism industry is slowly growing but we wanted to know more about what makes its people tick…
In this guide we look at the laws in Moldova covering prostitution, pornography and LGBTQ rights as well as finding out what kind of adult content the Moldovans are watching. We’ll give you the latest information about the adult industry of Moldova plus an overview of the country’s attitudes towards sex.
Contents
Sex in Moldova
With a long history of communist rule following cessation of Moldova by the Ottomans in 1812, the Republic of Moldova was declared an independent state in 1991. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Moldova’s economy virtually collapsed with a huge decrease in both industrial and agricultural output.
Over the last decade the country has seen some economic growth but remains one of the poorest countries in Europe (per capita). The average salary here is just €298 per month and the financial prospects of the country (linked to political instability, corruption and weak administration) mean that the economy is a vulnerable one.
Moldova also has the lowest Human Development Index score in Europe. A measure of income, life expectancy, knowledge and standards of living the Moldovans do not enjoy good levels of wealth, health or education.
It should come as no surprise that the country is also one of the least popular places to visit and Moldova only welcomes around 121,000 tourists each year. It is the only European country to appear on the 25 least ‘Touristy’ places list (according to Pricenomics).
As for the culture of sex, there isn’t that much information that is widely published and available on the subject. What we can divine are some basic facts about the social habits, beliefs and some hard facts.
So, the country has a population of just 3.55 million people, most of whom (94%) are Orthodox Christians. Family life is pretty conservative and traditional with heterosexuality and marriage being the norm. Though not quite as patriarchal as Albania, women are still lagging behind when it comes to equality and empowerment.
Along with neighbours Ukraine and Romania, Moldova has a poor Gender Inequality Index rating. This is used to establish how equitable the labour markets are between men and women as well as empowerment for women plus overall health factors such as reproductive health, adolescent birth and maternal mortality rates.
Some other stats paint a picture of life in Moldova for women.
- 12% of Moldovan women aged 20-24 were married before they were 18 years old.
- Around 20% of Moldovan women have experienced sexual harassment at work.
- 46% of Moldovan women will experience physical and/or sexual violence with their partner in their lifetime.
With reference to this last statistic, fact, 41% of men and 19% of women actually believe that ‘there are moments when a woman should be beaten’.
When it comes to sex education, although Moldova has a policy of mandatory curriculum content being delivered to primary and secondary school aged children, in reality this is far from the case. With inadequacies in teaching training plus monitoring and evaluation, many schools do not opt to teach this subject and many children leave school in Moldova with a woefully inadequate sexual health education.
The impact of this can be seen in the findings of national surveys on sexual behaviour and health. Moldova has high levels of teen pregnancy with a rate of 22.7 per 1,000 women aged 15-19; more than double the European average. In addition, adolescent abortions account for one in ten.
STIs are also a problem with the incidence of syphilis and gonorrhoea recorded at a rate of 160 per 100,000 people aged 15-19 (2014) which was the highest figure in Europe at the time.
According to a representative national study, 18% of youths aged 15 have had sex with 74% of males and 56% of females having used a condom.
Adult Industry in Moldova
Porn is legal in Moldova and there is no censorship of content beyond that which is illegal in other terms (bestiality, violence, underage sex etc.). However, there are no porn studios operating in the country. However, there are lots of live cam studios some of which do post their content online plus there are a lot of amateurs recording adult material to upload on tube sites.
Top Moldovan Adult Industry Stars
Despite there being no wholesale production of porn in Moldova, there are several adult movie stars who hail from the country. Most work in studios based in Czechia, Hungary or Western Europe but a handful have made it across the ‘pond’ and are working in the United States.
According to XVideos, the top porn stars (including some webcam models) from Moldova (by video views and global rankings, ever) are as follows:
| Performer | Total Video Views | European Ranking | World Ranking |
| Chloe Reese Carter | 22,620,424 | 1,210 | 3,457 |
| Diana Molestchi | 44,949,215 | 1,713 | 2,483 |
| Mashylka | n/a | 2,770 | 7,759 |
| Angel Karyna | 3,968,734 | 3,321 | 6,946 |
| Monica LP | 1,990,545 | 3,910 | 12,749 |
| Natasha Ola | 151,368 | 4,743 | 16,578 |
| Ulema | 69,800 | 5,107 | 16,220 |
| Inesa | 19,586 | 5,637 | 19,260 |
| Solntse | 17,652 | 5,671 | 19,300 |
| Avisdeen | 2,540 | 6,062 | 18,556 |
Whilst most of these ladies may be largely unknown outside of Moldova, Chloe Reese Carter is reasonably well known in the U.S.A. Though born is Chisinau, she moved to New York with her family when she was 12. Starting out in porn in 2011 at the age of 21, she has worked with Naughty America, MOFOs, Chick Pass and Raw Vidz as well as some smaller American studios. She is known for her enhanced 34G breasts and has put these bad boys to good use in some great titles for BangBros and Brazzers.
Other adult stars of note from Moldova include:
- Model and porn star Nadiya (Natasha Sweet)
- Anna Lesko (Glamour Model)
- XX-Cel Model Camelia
- Big Tit and DDF star Sexy Venera
- Lana Seymour (porn star)
Prostitution Laws in Moldova
Prostitution in Moldova is illegal yet there is plenty of sex for sale in the cites. Most of this goes on underground with street walkers being almost invisible.
Unfortunately, Moldova is widely known to be a problem country for trafficking both as a source and as a transit route. There is an established network of pimps, traffickers and prostitutes with this illicit trade being recognised as a ‘well organised’ one.
The United Nations estimates that there are around 12,000 sex workers in Moldova.
Moldova: Porn Viewing Trends
Every year the porn viewing appetites of the globe are researched by Pornhub and annual statistics are gathered. Yes, each search we perform on this tube hosting giant are collated and stored so that the world knows what we get up to. Whilst Moldova may have escaped singular attention, they do appear in some of these data sets.
The last time this nation went under the spotlight was in 2017 when the following porn viewing trends were noted.
As with many European countries, porn searches for local content were high with the top term being used to find video clips being ‘Moldova’. Other top keywords being searched included:
- Mom
- Russian
- Chisinau (the capital city)
- Teen
- Step Mom
- Moldovian
- Overwatch
- Russian Mature
- Russian Mom
- Big Tits
- MILF
What is obvious from these top search terms is that moms, mature and MILFs were pretty popular in Moldova.
Trending searches for the year (those terms that were up considerably, year-on-year) also included ‘big ass’, ‘big tits’, ‘Minecraft’, ‘Russian homemade’ and ‘Romania’.
Relative to the rest of the world, Moldovans were 94% more likely to be watching double penetration content and 55% more likely to be watching ‘mature’ porn.
Overall, the most popular content being watched online in Moldova came from the following top five categories:
- Anal
- Mature
- Hentai
- Lesbian
- MILF
Interestingly, a focus on searches for vintage porn in 2017 showed that retro content of this kind was very popular in Moldova. They topped the charts of vintage enthusiasts behind Belarus.
The most popular porn stars being watched in the country for this period included the usual line up of American actors (Lisa Ann, Mia Khalifa, Sasha Grey and Nicole Aniston) but the addition of the Russian erotic model, Katya Sambuca.
The average time spent on the site browsing for content was recorded at 8 minutes and 54 seconds which is over a minute shorter than the global average of 9 minutes and 59 seconds.
Rather surprisingly is the fact that the stats that 38% of visitors to Pornhub from Moldova were women. This is much higher than the global average recorded in 2017 of just 26% and was one of the highest ratios in the world! Odd in a country where gender equality in most other areas is very unbalanced!
Pornhub is the 47th most popular website in Moldova yet there are some other adult sites of note on the top 50 list, both of which get more monthly visitors than Facebook, Yahoo and WordPress.
- Bonga Cams – 8th most visited website in Moldova
- Live Jasmin – 15th most visited website in Moldova
Top Moldovan Porn
There are no websites that specialise in Moldovan porn but you can find some amateur content uploaded from the region via the popular tube hosting sites. Some of these clips also feature those porn stars listed above:
LGBTQ in Moldova
Homosexuality is legal in Moldova and has been since 1995, though there is no formal recognition of same-sex partnerships. Constitutionally, marriage that is not between a man and a woman is banned. However, transsexuals may legally change their gender (after psychiatric diagnosis).
The age of consent was equalised in 2002.
Though there is legislation in place to protect members of the LGBTQ community from discrimination in the media and at work, there are no such laws in other areas.
Homosexuals are also allowed to openly serve in the military though they would probably choose not to divulge their sexual orientation owing to the commonplace discrimination against gays and lesbians.
Public tolerance of homosexuality and diversity of gender and sexual preference is not high and attacks, abuse and discrimination is a commonplace occurrence in Moldova for LGBTQ persons.
With the Orthodox Church holding influence over opinion of the matter, attitudes about homosexuality are very conservative, in some cases extreme Far Right.
According to a survey undertaken in 2014 by the Institute of Public Policies showed that 83% of Moldovans did not accept LGBTQ people with a further 35.8% supporting the criminalisation of homosexuality. In addition:
- 9% of respondents said that gays and lesbians had a ‘mental illness’.
- 3% of respondents said that gays and lesbians were ‘abnormal’.
- 1% of respondents said that gays and lesbians were ‘sick’.
- 5% of respondents said that gays and lesbians were ‘loose’
- 5% of respondents said that gays and lesbians should be killed.
Whilst this latter level of extreme hostility is less common, a worrying majority (92%) would not accept an LGBTQ teacher in the class where their child was studying.
More recent research by The Pew Centre in 2017 showed that attitudes haven’t changed with 92% of those responding to the survey stating that homosexuality should not by accepted by society. Just 5% were in favour of supporting same-sex marriage.
With such a level of opposition, it is hard to imagine living as part of the LGBTQ community in Moldova but there is a small ‘scene’ in Chisinau.
LGBTQ activists continue to try and influence public opinion positively with many events and demonstrations being held in the country over the last few decades. The main campaigning group, GenderDoc-M continues to lobby parliament to expand existing legislation, raise awareness and help support the community.
A Pride event was held in 2002 but has been banned in the country since 2007 owing to complaints that the homosexuality undermines the Christian values of Moldova.
In short, members of the LGBTQ community experience far more difficulties living their lives in Moldova than in most other parts of Europe. Travellers to the country who identify as LGBTQ are advised to exercise caution with how they conduct themselves in public.
Top Classified/Personals Sites in Moldova
With poverty, unemployment and low income being major factors in Moldova, the dating scene is not as ‘vibrant’ as it is in other European countries. Young singles are very much looking for an escape to the limited prospects offered in their native land and there is a big trend for women (and men) seeking partners from outside of Moldova.
As a result, there are plenty of international dating agencies that offer their services in Moldova; some of whom specialise in finding Easter European brides. The best websites to try if you are interested in setting up a more serious dating opportunity in Moldova are:
For more casual dating opportunities then there are a couple of international sites that offer a good way to meet the locals without promising marriage up front. Most of these are Freemium services which means you can sign up for an account for free but whose features are only unlocked if you pay a subscription charge.
Just remember that Moldova is a country that doesn’t get a lot of tourists so the dating culture when it comes to foreigners is underpinned with suspicion. Of course, you can pick up a date in the bars and clubs but this is a lot less easy if you are an outsider plus English isn’t widely spoken.
Tinder, Badoo and Woo are also used for online dating.
Featured image via Max Pixel.
Interested in More of Europe's Hidden X-Rated Secrets?
We have published 27 country profiles, 64 local city guides, and hundreds of hours of research for your reading leisure. It's all 100% free. Get started with our quick links below...
