MORE than one-third of active Singaporean Internet users go to X-rated sites and young male students are the main visitors, according to a recent study by a European research company.

NetValue, a global Internet measurement company which did a study in December, said 68 percent of the adult site visitors were male, and the favorite destination was something called sexshare.

Singapore, where magazines showing even partial nudity are banned, frowns upon Internet porn but has all but given up the uphill fight to shield its young from cyber sex, stressing the need for family guidance instead.

According to NetValue, 36 percent of the estimated 783,000 active Internet users in Singapore visited adult sites. On average, males spent 71.5 minutes on adult sites in December, compared to 29.1 minutes for women.

"I was quite surprised at the findings," Levenia Ng, marketing communications manager for NetValue in Singapore, told AFP.

The biggest number of sex site visitors were from the 15-24 years age group, accounting for 41 percent of the total, followed by the 25-34 bracket, which accounted for 35 percent.

The study was done by recruiting a representative sampling of panelists who downloaded a proprietary software called NetMeter which captures all Internet activity for analysis.

NetValue found that interest in sex sites fell as incomes rose. The biggest segment of the surfers -- 31.3 percent -- had no income of their own.

This corresponded with the finding that 35 percent of the adult site visitors were students.

In a different study released Feb 21, student researchers from the local Nanyang Technological University's school of communication studies found that one in two teenagers in Singapore had "stumbled upon" sex material at least once while surfing the Internet.

One in three had chanced upon hate content, according to their survey conducted last October.

Sixty-seven percent of teenagers who saw sex material claimed that they were upset, according to the study.