PETALING JAYA: “Hentai,” or the overtly sexualised subgenre of Japanese anime and manga, was the eighth most popular pornography search item in the world in 2016, and amongst the most popular amongst Malaysians, according to an annual report by pornography site Pornhub.

While the report did not drill down into Malaysia, a “heatmap” – a graphical representation of data – shows that hentai is very popular amongst porn enthusiasts from Malaysia.

The report said hentai was fourth-most searched, mostly by the 18 to 24 age group.

Worldwide, the most popular search item was “lesbian,” followed by “step mom” and “MILF.”

“Lesbian” was “by far more popular in North America and Australia than anywhere else” in 2016, according to the report released last Thursday.

On average, about 26% of visitors to Pornhub worldwide are female, according to the report. According to another heatmap, Malaysia had a lower- than-average share here.

Hentai trended well in Asia, especially in China, the Philippines, Thailand and Japan.

In Asia, virtual reality (VR) porn was also very popular, with “360 VR,” “360 Degree,” “VR Hentai” and “shemale VR” being very popular porn search keywords in China, Thailand and Hong Kong.

Worldwide, porn surfers were most active between 10pm and 1am, with the evening office hours of 3pm to 5pm being the second-most active timeslot for online porn activity.

The Pornhub site got the most traffic from, in order, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and India.

Japan rounds up the top five, moving up seven spots from its previous position at No 12; while the Philippines, the only South-East Asian country in the top 20, jumped two spots to No 14.

In terms of “staying power,” surfers from the Philippines spent the most time on the site, at an average of 12.45 minutes, followed by South Africa (10:45 minutes) and the United States (10:15 minutes).

The Pornhub report also said that nearly 92 billion videos were watched over the course of 23 billion visits to the site, mostly by millennials who made up 60% of viewers.

Seniors aged 65 and above made up the smallest segment of visitors to the site, at 4%.

There were also more female visitors from the Southern Hemisphere, with the most popular search term being “lesbian.”

The Philippines, which had the largest share of female viewers over the last two years, was overtaken by Brazil for the No 1 spot.

Reality TV star Kim Kardashian, the most popular “pornstar” in 2015, dropped two spots to No 3, behind porn queen Lisa Ann and Lebanon’s Mia Khalifa at No 1 and 2 respectively.