Clarissa's Blog

Elizabeth Taylor wrote before the sexual revolution, and as a result her understanding of sexuality is a lot less prim, prudish and mechanistic than ours. Her writing is the polar opposite of crude but she still conveys a whole philosophy of sexuality that is wider, deeper and greater than whatever we ended up with after the 1960s.

There’s a short story in the collection titled mischievously, if a tad blasphemously, “For Thine Is the Power” that explains the whole mechanics of overheated, unloved women making #MeTootie accusations. Obviously, nobody called them that then but the phenomenon always existed. The story appears to be Taylor’s first ever published work, and it’s incredible to see such a mature portrayal of sexual confusion from a beginning writer.

Then there’s a story of another overexcited young woman who imagines that her 7-year-old student is trying to seduce her. There are no crude, physiological descriptions but the story makes it very clear what creates the unhealthy dynamic and where it can lead.