Cecelia Chang's assertion that 'Women who openly express their sexual feelings only serve to satisfy sexual perverts, male chauvinists, and the profit motive of the commercial producers of indecent films" is, sorry to say it, a lot of crap (Talk privately about private parts, Feb 14).

Vagina Monologues , written by Eve Ensler, sets out to discover how women feel about their bodies but first they have to come to terms with openly talking about their vaginas.

Some 200 interviews later, Ensler came out with a collection of poignant stories drawn from the experiences of a diverse group of women ranging from a Long Island antique dealer to a Bosnian refugee.

The play covers everything from chilling tales of rape to eyewitness accounts of the wonder of childbirth, and has spawned a cultural phenomenon to combat violence against women.

Far from pandering to male chauvinists, the Eve Ensler's award-winning play is a feminist clarion call against violence on women and a plea for the release of tightly-held sexual inhibitions of females in tribute to womanhood.

What woman who is liberated, and not repressed, would feel squeamish about openness in regards to her conflicted sexual feelings or travails? What woman who is modern feels uneasy about verbal liberation of and for the female genitalia?

To be sure, a government that supports women rights ( vagina per se; that "we do not want to stifle artistic freedom, but freedom comes with responsibility," and that the "authorities had decided not to extend the play's run as it contained vulgarity and was sprinkled with Quranic verses referring to a woman's responsibilities". "How can you have Islamic references in a play where the actresses touch themselves and use foul language? What would non-Muslims think?" he asked.

From a non-Muslim Malaysians secular viewpoint, the real objection to Vagina Monologues is its subtle and underlying radical feminist message that encourages the delusion among impressionable, western-influenced women of this country that they are in full control of their reproductive system and that everything negative or ambivalent about it is not attributed to the depredations and brutality of the natural reproductive cycle operating against women, as such, but to the prejudice of and their victimisation by misogynous and chauvinist males!

This kind of propaganda does nothing to bridge the chasm of gender misunderstanding, much less shed the truth. This is how the cultural hegemony of Western values is subtly spawned among our peoples.

Why can't Malaysian play writers and dramatists spare us Ensler's infantile creed of women victimisation in the hands of men?

They could for example interview 200 Malaysian men, among whom I could be a volunteer, and come out with something more relevant without religious references like (say) the "Monologue of Malaysian Penises"? That would be more interesting. At least it is unlikely to be banned.