This work investigates the historical and theoretical exclusion of women from the clinical definition of fetishism, arguing for a re-evaluation of the concept within modernist literature. Clare L. Taylor, an academic researcher, utilizes a framework grounded in gender theory and psychoanalysis to interrogate how female authors navigated the sexological discourses of their time. By analyzing the works of writers such as Radclyffe Hall and Anaïs Nin, the book constructs an alternative theory that validates female fetishism as a significant, albeit overlooked, aspect of modernist creative expression.

Scholars in the field of gender studies and modernist literature identify this text as a rigorous intervention into psychoanalytic history. Readers frequently note the academic density of the prose, which is intended for an audience familiar with critical theory and sexology.