By Alaa Shahine, BEIRUT (Reuters) – The young, pretty actress appears before a capacity crowd at a Beirut theater and says she was forced to shave her pubic hair to please her husband in bed after finding out he was cheating on her. "My husband hates the hair. He thinks it is filthy and disgusting and forced me to remove it … and when I stopped shaving he had an affair with another woman," she says.

"But you have to love the hair if you love ‘CoCo’," she says, referring to the vagina and drawing applause and laughter from the audience. "Women’s Talk," inspired by American playwright Eve Ensler’s hit "The Vagina Monologues," is one of two plays recently shown in Beirut which openly and frankly tackle the issue of women’s sexuality, a taboo in the largely conservative Middle East.

The play, starring four young actresses and comprising 12 monologues, three of them adapted from Ensler’s work, also brings into the open such serious problems as rape, domestic violence and sexual harassment, which Arab women are discouraged from discussing in public. The audience needs to know about these issues. I don’t know why it is shameful for a woman to talk openly about her period, for example," said Lina Khoury, who wrote and directed her monologues based on interviews with women of different ages.

"We have to question the very customs and traditions in our society that are besieging and oppressing us," she told Reuters. Lebanon has long prided itself on being a bastion of freedom in the conservative Middle East and it is no surprise that such a play would open in its liberal capital. Yet even here, Khoury had to tone down some language to get the censor’s approval and waited more than a year for permission to show the play

By: Khaldoon Al-Saee,

Unheard Whispers – By a Patriotic Muslim

Dearest Lebanese brothers & sisters,

Honesty is the key to solving many of our social and political issues.  We have witnessed for years the political charade on our television sets by numerous of our politicians; smiles and laughs while meeting each other on this legendary roundtable of debate while under the table someone tries to stab the other in the back.  Our problem here in Lebanon is grouping of citizens politicaly through a religious basis of stereotyping.  Quite frankly these labels have caused the separation and semi-partitioning of our society.  With every generation, mounting bloodshed and scars in many of our ancesters, many parents actually raise their kids to group their Lebanese bretheren religiously.  And here my friends is where the problem exists that lags the bridge building between our communities.  This metaphoric bridge that brings us closer to one another, that many of us dream of ever night yet never believe it to be a reality.  Let’s just be honest here, not many people can be optimistic about the Lebanese dilemma and civil strife.

            What i’m trying to bring forth today is to do my part in this bridge building and i’ld be pleased if many listen and comprehend these words.  In the past few years, namely the post 9-11 era, the phrase ‘Islamophobia’ was coined.  We’ve all seen it on TV; men strapping themselves with C4 and killing innocent people; people hijacking planes and crashing into buildings; hostages and beheadings – and the list goes on.  The truth my friends is that these scenarios lead not to any progress in achieving political goals, these events actually take us backwards and into a cycle of violence.  Victims do exist yes, the first victims are those in the line of fire, those that lose their lives or limbs in these atrocious acts.  But consequensially there are more victims, there are those of us moderate muslims that lay down as hostages throughout our lives to being placed in the same category as these madmen.  One may simply ask, "Then why are you not doing anything about it?"  It’s not that simple, but here I am writing my heart out with pen and paper.  Has everyone lost the belief that the pen is mightier than the sword?

BEIRUT, 17 April (IRIN) – "I left school when I was only 11," said 38 year-old Ihsan. "My mother became ill, and