In late 2011, a Malaysian Muslim activist group called the ‘Obedient Wives’ Club’ (OWC) made world headlines when they published a guide on the conduct of married life. Explicitly entitled Seks Islam: Perangi Yahudi untuk Kembalikan Seks Islam ke Dunia (Islamic Sex: Fighting Jews to Return Islamic Sex to the World), this provocative book claims that ‘Jewish’ (read: Zionist) notions of love, sexuality and eroticism have tainted modern-day sexual practices. Women are often approached by their spouses as if they are merely objects or animals, without due consideration of their emotional needs. The book also claims that Jews are responsible for the rampancy of pornography around the world, which has shaped the ways in which men perceive women's bodies. As an alternative, the book provides tips for developing a harmonious married life to keep men away from ‘five star hotels that provide “first class service” to their special guests’. This is no place to discuss the controversies surrounding the OWC or the eventual fate of the ‘Islamic Sex’ book, which was censured by feminist groups and banned by the Malaysian state. My interest is in one factor that undergirds the concerns of the OWC, its detractors as well as its interlocutors: the symbolic importance of Muslim women's bodies in Southeast Asian Islam. To be sure, women's bodies and physical appearances have been, and still are, a highly contested issue in contemporary Islam. Scott Kugle neatly summarises such developments:

Kugle's assessment of the growing interest in women's bodies is essentially negative in tone, as if suggesting that the issue has been constructed largely by forces external to the Muslim women themselves.