Inductivist

Here's an interesting topic. I've been reminded recently how the cultural elite thinks that Southerners are sexual perverts. Just a couple days ago I watched an episode of Louis C.K. where a redneck pulled a gun on Louis to get him to have sex with his sister. Just last week I watched Midnight Cowboy again which suggested that the Southern protagonist was sexually abused by his grandmother. That reminded me of the "purdy mouth" scene in Deliverance. More recently, Texan Killer Joe, played by Matthew McConaughey, obsesses on a young girl. And so on and so on.

I looked for data on the question. I had a difficult time finding anything, but the GSS has asked participants if their religious leader has ever made sexual advances, and this is certainly sexually deviant (sample = 1,758). The percent for Americans in the non-South is 2.3 percent, while it's 2.6 percent in the South; they are not significantly different. Plus, the rate in the South might actually be lower if you take into account the fact that the non-South is less religious and thus has a smaller share of its people that are at risk of clergy abuse.

UPDATE: I equalized the situation by only looking at people who attend at least nearly every week. The non-South percentage rises to 4.2%, while the South's rises to 3.7% (N = 531). Still no significant difference.

UPDATE UPDATE: These low numbers contradict the picture presented in Grapes of Wrath of ministers having sex with members every time they get to feelin' the Spirit. 

Looking again at southern intelligence: I was watching a 1993 video about juveniles and the death penalty and said to myself, "All these deathrow teens are dumb white Southerners," and it got me curious again about the idea that whites from that part of the country ain't so bright. When I looked at educational levels in an earlier post, the Southeast was low, but the West South Central Division (Arkansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Texas) was not. The General Social Survey (GSS) showed us previously that education and IQ are only moderately correlated, so let's look at the GSS's measure of intelligence--the number of vocabulary words out of 10 answered correctly. I list the divisional means from highest to lowest for whites only:


Mean vocabulary score

New England 6.65
Pacific 6.53
Middle Atlantic 6.52
Mountain 6.48
West North Central 6.33

USA 6.25

East North Central 6.14
South Atlantic 6.07
West South Central 6.00
East South Central 5.42

The stereotype is confirmed: the lowest three divisions are all southern. But the East North Central division (IL, IN, MI, OH, WI) is also below average. The Mountain states in someways feel like the South, but as we saw with data on Mormons, folks in that region are not dumb.

So what's the reason for low Southern averages, especially in Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Kentucky? A history of inbreeding? And folks from down there, don't get sensitive: we recognize that you have your Faulkners.