An Islamic fringe group of women called Global Ikhwan has founded an “Obedient Wives Club” in Malaysia. Government officials have stepped in, stopping the Obedient Wives intention to distribute a book titled ‘Islamic Sex, Fighting Jews to Return Islamic Sex to the World’, written by the club’s founder, who argues that women only satisfy 10 percent of husbands’ sex needs and are responsible for the rising divorce rate in Malaysia.

Make no mistake. This Sensual Rebel believes that couples should be spending more time in bed. Why she does it is another issue. Submission and doing the sexual act because it is my wifely duty, or making a constant offering of myself to satisfy my husband’s sexual needs, but not my own,  is not in my vocabulary.

The goals of the polygamy-practicing Islamic group in Malaysia reinforce our recent, conflicting discussions around the desireability of women submitting to men in the bedroom. Younger women and Phyllis Schlafly both believe that ‘uppidity’ feminist women like me are the fault of tensions in modern relationships — failing to make a man — well, feel like a man. (Note that the history of this feminist is the exact opposite.)

For all the social conservatives globally and young people in America who slam feminists for not embracing easily the concept of submission, this feminist is guilty as charged and damn proud of it.

Club leaders in Malaysia have said a wife should serve as a ‘Good sex worker’ and a ‘whore’ to her husband. Schlafly agrees, saying this understanding is part of the marital contract. (Note that I have total respect for Phyllis Schlafly as an amazing, effective woman and intellectual opponent.)

The Malaysia Star reports that an entire chapter of the new book is devoted to ‘sexual worship’ of the man, with no discussion of any mutual respect. Reading now, it seems that perhaps this worship occurs among multiple women in different geographic locations at the same time — presumably using the Internet, with women all bowing down together online.

The Obedient Wives Club is believed to have at least 800 members in Malaysia and has established branches abroad in Indonesia, Singapore, Jordan and Britain. Many club members are in polygamous marriages, insisting the practice helps husbands to avoid committing adultery. Islam allows men to take up to four wives.

A 2010 study by a Muslim activist group found that men in polygamous relationships struggled to meet the needs of all their wives and children, and that the result was often unhappy and cash-strapped families.

Maria Chin Abdullah, executive director of the women’s advocacy group Empower, called the book a “very backward, narrow way of presenting women’s role.”

“It’s really an affront to the women’s rights movement,” she said. “We have come forward so far to say women are not just sex objects.” via Al Arabiya News

Recently criticized for my ‘knee-jerk, classic feminist’ response the the philosophical concept of the natural submission of women, of course this Malaysian movement on how to be a better woman caught my eye.

The movement is alive also in America. Just recently, I watched Oprah’s OWN’s Lisa Ling ‘Our America’ show Spotlight on a Young Polygamist family. (On a side note, presidential candidate Rick Perry and his religious buddies call Oprah the antichrist for her work on behalf of women. They believe Oprah is upsetting the natural order of gender relations.)