purity test

Noun

purity test (plural purity tests)

1. An informal survey that assesses the participant's supposed degree of innocence in worldly matters, such as sex, drugs, and deceit.
   • […] popular online “purity tests,” which use a series of 500 questions about sexual experience and drug use to establish one's level of “purity.”2017, Jonathan P. Eburne, Benjamin Schreier, The Year's Work in Nerds, Wonks, and Neocons, page 224
2. A rigid standard on a specific issue by which a politician or other figure is evaluated.
   • To begin, we return to Will: “What started as a critical reading of a children's book became a social justice 'racial equity' purity test full of hypocrisy”.2019, Jessica S. Mitchell, Erin N. Vaughn, Participatory Literacy Practices for P-12 Classrooms in the Digital Age, page 211
   • In retrospect, this was the height (or perhaps the nadir) of a kind of purity-test politics that was making some swing voters, including [Joe] Rogan, feel less at home in the Democratic coalition.2025 March 17, Andrew Marantz, “The Battle for the Bros”, in The New Yorker, →ISSN