The recent ban of the award-winning play The Vagina Monologues because of public complaints is but an excuse by the self-appointed moral guardians in City Hall to douse the creative and artistic spirit.

Don't they know that conservatism is the death of creative and artistic works?

Those who complained would be red-faced to hear sex educators use words like vagina, orgasm, masturbation and ejaculation. Or were the complainants recoiling from the fact that women could talk so freely of their sexual feelings?

Or is it because it offended Islam?

Banning this play will only undermine all that Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad said about a progressive Malaysia at the just concluded World Economic Forum in New York. To Westerners, the ban contradicts his speech.

I believe it is time that our leaders take steps to ensure that their views and policies are followed by their subordinates.