The South is commonly stereotyped as having a slower pace of life, but does that also apply to coming out as gay? According to readers of Out, a national gay magazine, it certainly does.

Southern gays the slowest to come out?

The gay glossy just released its first Sex & Love survey, which is hardly scientific or a representative sample of LGBT people around the country, but still contains some conversation-worthy results.

Nationwide, the majority of respondents — 57 percent — came out at age 22 or younger.

Here is the more detailed breakdown of national results:

  • Before age 17: 21 percent
  • Ages 18-22: 36 percent
  • Ages 23-26: 14 percent
  • Ages 27-30: 7 percent
  • Age 30 or older: 14 percent
  • Have not come out: 8 percent

Not so with the South, however. According to the introduction to the survey, Southerners “are the slowest to come out” — although it doesn’t list the average age. Northerners are apparently the fastest.

The survey, presented in short slides, doesn’t offer any analysis or theories for different regional ages for coming out, but we can suggest a few. Perhaps it takes longer to come out here in the heart of the Bible Belt, while our friends in the North have multiple states with gay marriage and generally more LGBT-friendly laws and attitudes.

According to the survey, Southerners were the most likely to have kids, and the least likely to be married (we assume they mean legally married to a same-sex partner, which makes sense since no states in our region allow gay marriage).

The survey also suggested the so-called “gayby boom” will continue in the next generation: 70 percent of respondents ages 18-25 want kids, while only 31 percent ages 36-45 want to be parents.

If you want to see the rest of the results, which span everything from what gay men call their partners (“lover” ranks low, we assume since the ’70s are over…) to what they think about small penises (no surprises there either), click here.