MORE women visited the Guangzhou sex expo Sunday, the second day of a three-day event.

Among the 50,000 visitors Saturday, about 20 percent were women while that percentage doubled Sunday, a Guangzhou Daily report said. Organizers this year handed out 100,000 free tickets but touts sold others for 20 yuan (US$2.5) each to eager patrons Saturday.

"The event shows the mainland is open and bold about sex," Xu Tianmin, president of the China Sexology Association, said during the event's opening ceremony.

A survey of more than 10,000 people aged between 25 and 34 by Durex.com suggests the age at which Chinese people first have sex has fallen from 22 in 2001 to 18 in this year's survey.

But according to Xu, sex education has not kept pace with the country's increasingly open attitudes.

The survey found that one-third of those interviewed did not receive any sex education at school.

Xu said a lack of sex education and ignorance of safe sex were reasons for the spread of HIV/AIDS and venereal diseases. "We hope people, especially young people, can know more about healthy sex through this three-day event," Xu said.

The event, also known as the Third Chinese (Guangzhou) Sex Culture Festival, with the theme of "healthy and harmonious sex," has a special exhibition about sex culture and sexually transmitted diseases.

A high school student surnamed Ouyang said his parents had accompanied him to the festival.

"I don't know much about sex and the festival has taught me a lot I didn't know before," he said.

Sexologists addressed forums on various subjects, including one talk by Li Yinhe, a famous female expert on homosexuality in China.

Zhang Feng, director of the Guangdong Sexology Association, said the two previous sex festivals in Guangzhou had been a roaring success. More than 110,000 people visited the event last year. More cities in other parts of China were planning to hold similar festivals, Zhang added.

"Shijiazhuang, capital of North China's Hebei Province, will launch another sex festival soon," he said.

Editor: Yan