A women's group is creating worldwide furore by vying to teach wives how to "keep their spouses happy in the bedroom."
The Obedient Wives Club (OWC) is already established in Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore, and hopes to open London, Paris, Rome and Frankfurt chapters in the near future.
The OWC's mission statement, as it were, claims that a multitude of social problems -- from prostitution, domestic violence, human trafficking to abandoned babies -- can be curbed if only wives would learn to be sexually submissive to their husbands.
Becoming "a first-class prostitute" to your hubby, according to OWC Vice-president, Rohaya Mohamad, is the path to righteousness and social order.
"In Islam, if the husband wants sex and the wife is not in the mood, she has to give in to him," said the Singapore club's co-founder Darlan Zaini. "If not, the angels will curse her. This is not good for the family."
An angel in the kitchen, a demon in the sack. If you think you're in the middle of some Middle Ages nightmare, you're not alone.
"What the club signifies is a regression, a moving backwards, in [what] women and other progressive men – Muslim and non-Muslim – are trying to do for gender equality here in Singapore," said Aware (the Association of Women for Action and Research) vice president, Halijah Mohamed.
Fauziah Ariffin, the Malaysian chapter's national director, clarified her position: "When we said that husbands should treat their wives like first-class prostitutes, we are talking about first-class elite types, not street hooker types … ordinary prostitutes can only provide good sex, but not love and affection, which only a wife can provide."
Oh well, that's a relief, then.
But with members already numbering some 1,000 worldwide, the controversy surrounding OWC obviously isn't hurting its popularity. And South-east Asian men aren't exactly complaining, either.
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