Purity Culture and the Politics of White Innocence: Renee Good, Patriarchy, and Mar a Lago Face

Straight White American Jesus

Axis Mundi Media: Bradley Onishi + Daniel Miller

News, Politics

4.7 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 1 February 2026

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode of Straight White American Jesus, Brad is joined by Sarah Moslener, author of After Purity: Race, Sex, and Religion in White Christian America and creator of the Pure White podcast. Together, they explore purity culture not as a narrow fixation on teenage abstinence, but as a powerful religious and political system that has long shaped ideas of belonging in the United States. Moslener traces purity culture back to 19th-century slavery, Victorian gender norms, and Protestant theology, showing how it functions to define “good bodies” and “bad bodies,” determine moral worth, and police the boundaries of citizenship. White womanhood, in particular, emerges as a national symbol of innocence and virtue that has been central to sustaining racial hierarchy and social control. The conversation turns to how these myths are playing out in the present, from the aesthetics and behavior of women aligned with Trump-era politics to the legal and media treatment of women involved in January 6. Brad and Moslener examine how white innocence is protected when it reinforces authority and withdrawn when it challenges power, contrasting the treatment of compliant figures with white women who resist authoritarianism and women of color who face state violence. From ICE raids to the killing of Renee Good, the episode highlights how authoritarian systems rely on fear, spectacle, and constantly shifting lines between “good” and “bad” to enforce obedience. The discussion ultimately underscores the high cost—and the necessity—of defecting from whiteness in moments of moral and political crisis. Subscribe for $3.65 a month to get bonus content most Mondays, bonus episodes every month, ad-free listening, access to the entire 1000+ episode archive, Discord access, and more: https://axismundi.supercast.com/ Linktree: https://linktr.ee/StraightWhiteJC Order American Caesar by Brad Onishi: https://static.macmillan.com/static/essentials/american-caesar-9781250427922/ Subscribe to American Exceptionalism Donate to SWAJ: https://axismundi.supercast.com/donations/new Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Axis Mundi.
0:12.4	Welcome to straight white American Jesus.
0:16.7	I'm Brad Ornishi, author of American Caesar,
0:19.2	how theocrats and tech lords are turning America into a monarchy pre-orders available now.
0:25.9	It's Sunday, and these interviews usually happen on Monday.
0:30.6	Well, as some of you know, we have made a change.
0:33.3	We're going to be doing our Swage interviews on Sundays with a little bit longer of a format.
0:38.3	You'll hear me, but you'll also hear Leah Payne and Anna Kaabrakshmit, alternating weekends, and really forming a team effort to bring you interviews with scholars and researchers, experts, journalists, and public figures.
0:51.3	A week from today, you'll hear Anika Broxmidt, who is a journalist and just absolute expert on all things Christian nationalism and the religious right in the United States, as well as Europe.
1:03.5	Speaking with Seth Kotler, who is one of the leading researchers in my mind on local right-wing politics and truly scary fascist movements in the
1:13.5	United States. So I've been meaning to have Seth on the show for a long time, and I'm thoroughly
1:18.7	excited that Onika will be interviewing him. Today, though, we have somebody who is so important
1:24.5	to this show, and that is Dr. Sarah Mosliner, who has a new book out called
1:28.7	After Purity, and it examines the ramifications of purity culture, but also digs into the
1:34.2	history of the connections between purity culture and white supremacy.
1:39.3	She is, of course, the creator of Pure White, an Axis Moondi show that we made a couple of years
1:43.3	ago that examines these very themes, and also the author of Pure White, an Axis Mundi show that we made a couple of years ago that examines
1:44.4	these very themes, and also the author of Virgin Nations, Sexual Purity and American Adolescence.
1:50.9	It was great to welcome Sarah back to the show after a period where we hadn't heard from her
1:56.1	in a while. And our conversation is wide-ranging. It really does hit on topics related to sexuality and the body, but also race and hierarchy and inclusion in the United States.
2:07.2	One of the things we talk about at length is Mar-a-Lago Face and how it represents this patriarchal expectation of how women should act and the ways that their bodies should conform to male expectations.
2:20.1	And we relate that to the killing of Renee Good and what happens when women don't conform
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