Here's the assumption: to prevent women being victimised or exploited there must be prohibitions on female sexuality, and things certain women do made illegal for their own good.

In my university days, dancing in striptease clubs, I heard countless variations on that theme. Oddly enough, they rarely came from religious misogynists, but campus feminists who insisted my dancing in spangled bikinis damaged the sisterhood. It also made me enough money to live comfortably while attending school, but my detractors didn't care. And their strain of feminism reigns in Iceland, which has banned strip clubs, topless bars and any business model where people make money off nudity.

The ban is the brainchild of politician Kolbrún Halldórsdóttir, who feels it necessary because: "It is not acceptable that women or people in general are a product to be sold." Which is true, but a non-sequitur. Halldórsdóttir falls for the same falsehood my militant classmates did: professionally sexy women must always be exploited, whether we thought so or not.

Such logic pervades feminist (rather than religious) campaigns to abolish the sex industries. Iceland is far down that path; it outlawed prostitution last year, though it's a safe bet there are still hookers on the island, working for the criminal underground rather than legal, licensed businesses.

Opponents like Halldórsdóttir think the sex "industry" must be synonymous with sex "slavery," without understanding that driving such industries underground only increases the likelihood its participants will be victimised. Illegal sex slavery unfortunately does exist, but the problem is the slavery, not the sex.

The crusaders refuse to believe any woman could rationally choose a job like dancing, because "I'd never want to, therefore nobody could want to, therefore nobody's allowed to". When did feminism get so solipsistic? I remember tracts from the second wave of the 1970s and 80s, when feminism was about "choices". But nouveau feminists can't stand women making choices they don't approve of, and support women's rights as their religious counterparts do: by banning what offends them.

A few years ago, I was sent to cover an Islamic discussion forum at a conservative local mosque. But the forum was in the men's section, where no man would talk to or even look at me. I was none-too-subtly herded into the dingy women's section, to watch the proceedings on a small closed-circuit TV.

I asked the women how they tolerated having half of humanity off-limits to them. They gave answers heavily peppered with the words "beauty" and "respect". See, men find women's beauty distracting, so beauty must be hidden lest men be too distracted to respect women. Apparently, men can think "there's a sexy woman" or "there's someone I respect", but never both at once, so female behaviour must be curtailed to reflect that.

And modern feminists nod and agree – and promote women's rights by restricting women's choices. I'm lucky they held no authority over me when I was 18, and couldn't afford school unless I made exponentially more than the average part-time wage. Given Iceland's dismal economic state, I hope my doppelganger in Reykjavik overcomes the new limits on her options, imposed for her own liberation.

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