diff --git a/lib/rails/html/sanitizer.rb b/lib/rails/html/sanitizer.rb
index 531ff0d..e6078fe 100644
--- a/lib/rails/html/sanitizer.rb
+++ b/lib/rails/html/sanitizer.rb
@@ -31,9 +31,13 @@ def sanitize(html, options = {})
 
         loofah_fragment = Loofah.fragment(html)
 
-        loofah_fragment.scrub!(TextOnlyScrubber.new)
+        if options[:preserve_whitespace]
+          loofah_fragment.to_text
+        else
+          loofah_fragment.scrub!(TextOnlyScrubber.new)
 
-        properly_encode(loofah_fragment, encoding: "UTF-8")
+          properly_encode(loofah_fragment, encoding: "UTF-8")
+        end
       end
     end
 
diff --git a/test/sanitizer_test.rb b/test/sanitizer_test.rb
index dae5001..a24051e 100644
--- a/test/sanitizer_test.rb
+++ b/test/sanitizer_test.rb
@@ -78,37 +78,41 @@ def test_remove_xpaths_called_with_enumerable_xpaths
 
   def test_strip_tags_with_quote
     input = '<" <img src="trollface.gif" onload="alert(1)"> hi'
-    result = full_sanitize(input)
     acceptable_results = [
       # libxml2 >= 2.9.14 and xerces+neko
       %{&lt;"  hi},
       # other libxml2
       %{ hi},
+      # preserve_whitespace: true
+      "&lt;&quot;  hi",
     ]
 
-    assert_includes(acceptable_results, result)
+    assert_full_sanitized(acceptable_results, input)
   end
 
   def test_strip_invalid_html
-    assert_equal "&lt;&lt;", full_sanitize("<<<bad html")
+    assert_full_sanitized "&lt;&lt;", "<<<bad html"
   end
 
   def test_strip_nested_tags
     expected = "Wei&lt;a onclick='alert(document.cookie);'/&gt;rdos"
     input = "Wei<<a>a onclick='alert(document.cookie);'</a>/>rdos"
-    assert_equal expected, full_sanitize(input)
+    assert_full_sanitized expected, input
   end
 
   def test_strip_tags_multiline
-    expected = %{This is a test.\n\n\n\nIt no longer contains any HTML.\n}
     input = %{<h1>This is <b>a <a href="" target="_blank">test</a></b>.</h1>\n\n<!-- it has a comment -->\n\n<p>It no <b>longer <strong>contains <em>any <strike>HTML</strike></em>.</strong></b></p>\n}
+    acceptable_results = [
+      %{This is a test.\n\n\n\nIt no longer contains any HTML.\n},
+      # preserve_whitespace: true
+      %{\nThis is a test.\n\nIt no longer contains any HTML.\n\n}
+    ]
 
-    assert_equal expected, full_sanitize(input)
+    assert_full_sanitized acceptable_results, input
   end
 
   def test_remove_unclosed_tags
     input = "This is <-- not\n a comment here."
-    result = full_sanitize(input)
     acceptable_results = [
       # libxml2 >= 2.9.14 and xerces+neko
       %{This is &lt;-- not\n a comment here.},
@@ -116,12 +120,11 @@ def test_remove_unclosed_tags
       %{This is },
     ]
 
-    assert_includes(acceptable_results, result)
+    assert_full_sanitized(acceptable_results, input)
   end
 
   def test_strip_cdata
     input = "This has a <![CDATA[<section>]]> here."
-    result = full_sanitize(input)
     acceptable_results = [
       # libxml2 = 2.9.14
       %{This has a &lt;![CDATA[]]&gt; here.},
@@ -131,7 +134,7 @@ def test_strip_cdata
       %{This has a  here.},
     ]
 
-    assert_includes(acceptable_results, result)
+    assert_full_sanitized(acceptable_results, input)
   end
 
   def test_strip_unclosed_cdata
@@ -153,40 +156,52 @@ def test_strip_unclosed_cdata
 
   def test_strip_blank_string
     assert_nil full_sanitize(nil)
-    assert_equal "", full_sanitize("")
-    assert_equal "   ", full_sanitize("   ")
+    assert_nil full_sanitize(nil, preserve_whitespace: true)
+    assert_full_sanitized "", ""
+    assert_full_sanitized "   ", "   "
   end
 
   def test_strip_tags_with_plaintext
-    assert_equal "Don't touch me", full_sanitize("Don't touch me")
+    assert_full_sanitized "Don't touch me", "Don't touch me"
   end
 
   def test_strip_tags_with_tags
-    assert_equal "This is a test.", full_sanitize("<p>This <u>is<u> a <a href='test.html'><strong>test</strong></a>.</p>")
+    assert_full_sanitized "This is a test.", "<b>This <u>is<u> a <a href='test.html'><strong>test</strong></a>.</b>"
   end
 
   def test_escape_tags_with_many_open_quotes
-    assert_equal "&lt;&lt;", full_sanitize("<<<bad html>")
+    assert_full_sanitized "&lt;&lt;", "<<<bad html>"
   end
 
   def test_strip_tags_with_sentence
-    assert_equal "This is a test.", full_sanitize("This is a test.")
+    assert_full_sanitized "This is a test.", "This is a test."
   end
 
   def test_strip_tags_with_comment
-    assert_equal "This has a  here.", full_sanitize("This has a <!-- comment --> here.")
+    assert_full_sanitized "This has a  here.", "This has a <!-- comment --> here."
   end
 
   def test_strip_tags_with_frozen_string
-    assert_equal "Frozen string with no tags", full_sanitize("Frozen string with no tags")
+    assert_full_sanitized "Frozen string with no tags", "Frozen string with no tags"
   end
 
   def test_full_sanitize_respect_html_escaping_of_the_given_string
-    assert_equal 'test\r\nstring', full_sanitize('test\r\nstring')
-    assert_equal "&amp;", full_sanitize("&")
-    assert_equal "&amp;", full_sanitize("&amp;")
-    assert_equal "&amp;amp;", full_sanitize("&amp;amp;")
-    assert_equal "omg &lt;script&gt;BOM&lt;/script&gt;", full_sanitize("omg &lt;script&gt;BOM&lt;/script&gt;")
+    assert_full_sanitized 'test\r\nstring', 'test\r\nstring'
+    assert_full_sanitized "&amp;", "&"
+    assert_full_sanitized "&amp;", "&amp;"
+    assert_full_sanitized "&amp;amp;", "&amp;amp;"
+    assert_full_sanitized "omg &lt;script&gt;BOM&lt;/script&gt;", "omg &lt;script&gt;BOM&lt;/script&gt;"
+  end
+
+  def test_full_sanitize_preserve_whitespace
+    assert_equal "\na\n\nb\n", full_sanitize("<p>a</p><p>b</p>", preserve_whitespace: true)
+  end
+
+  def test_full_sanitize_preserve_whitespace_ascii_8bit_string
+    full_sanitize("<a>hello</a>".encode("ASCII-8BIT")).tap do |sanitized|
+      assert_equal "hello", sanitized
+      assert_equal Encoding::UTF_8, sanitized.encoding
+    end
   end
 
   def test_strip_links_with_tags_in_tags
@@ -917,6 +932,11 @@ def assert_sanitized(input, expected = nil)
     assert_equal((expected || input), safe_list_sanitize(input))
   end
 
+  def assert_full_sanitized(acceptable_results, input)
+    assert_includes(Array(acceptable_results), full_sanitize(input))
+    assert_includes(Array(acceptable_results), full_sanitize(input, preserve_whitespace: true))
+  end
+
   def sanitize_css(input)
     Rails::Html::SafeListSanitizer.new.sanitize_css(input)
   end