Poyner-Smith offers a fresh take on purity culture, one of the first to carefully focus on the post-purity identity of former evangelicals, as individuals and a collective. As a self-described “outsider within,” she provides a much needed perspective for a discourse saturated with insider experiences and language. With a focus on the language and space creation of the Ex-vangelical movement, Rhetoric of Impurities is a much welcome addition to our conversations about evangelical purity culture.

Sara Moslener, Senior Lecturer, Central Michigan University, USA, and Author of Virgin Nation: Sexuality Purity and American Adolescence (2015) and After Purity: Race, Sex, and Religion in White Christian American (2025)

Rhetoric of Impurities offers a significant and timely contribution to scholars working at the intersection of purity culture and rhetoric. It challenges readers to consider purity as a rhetorical ecosystem with considerable political and cultural reach. Ultimately, this book offers a powerful lens for understanding how stories of deconstruction become acts of rhetorical invention and collective resistance. As such, Rhetoric of Impurities provides new ways to engage purity culture within feminist rhetorics, cultural rhetorics, and religious studies.

Victoria Houser, Assistant Teaching Professor, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA

Through her incisive analysis of ExVangelical impurity/purity discourses, Karly Poyner-Smith's Rhetoric of Impurities represents an important shift in purity culture research. More than cataloguing purity culture's historical, religious, and ethical grip on white women's bodies, her book invites an understanding of the discursive function of purity in the lives of those who survived its menacing effects.

Lauren D. Sawyer, Curriculum and Instruction Manager, Allender Center & Affiliate Faculty, The Seattle School, USA

"Rhetoric of Impurities: American ExVangelical Narratives and the Naming of Purity Discourse offers a thought-provoking and empathetic exploration of how ExVangelicals push against purity culture. Dr. Poyner-Smith Skillfully combines interviews, published memoirs, and diaries to critique the taken-for-granted nature of purity culture within American Christianity. The book introduces a rhetoric of impurities, recasting impurity as positive. This is a good read for ExVangelicals, those who are deconstructing their faith, and progressive religious leaders to better understand themselves, others like them, and those who still adhere to purity culture. For those who study rhetoric, this book helps us understand how purity culture leaves its mark on the body even after breaking away from it. Rhetoric of Impurities is timely contribution. This book will challenge you to consider the ways purity culture has left its mark on you." - Janine Armstrong, Assistant Professor of Communication Studies, Manchester University, USA