Sex, Drugs & Rock-n-Roll, “I want my MTV,” and… the end of Titty Bars.

Ever been to a strip club?

It’s almost a “who hasn’t?” response.

We see them on teevee and in the movies, so if one has never been, it’s almost as if they have, even if they haven’t been physically.

Even Huntsville, Alabama – a conservative, strongly religious, Republican-leaning state, and Huntsville, it’s most highly educated city – has strip clubs.

Otherwise and sometimes known as titty bars, and a variety of other pseudonyms, the venues are typically bars or lounges where alcohol is served to predominately male patrons by female employees, and whom quaff their brews while seated together in a dark room watching a female dancer gyrate to various popular musical tunes, accompanied by various stages of disrobing.

Sometimes, depending upon locale and local or state law, the female dancers may be required to wear “pasties” which are opaque adhesive coverings which cover their areolae and nipples. Sometimes also – again, depending upon state and/or local law – alcohol may or may not be served, though it frequently is consumed on premises.

Typically, the dancers will be tipped by the patrons, which may also include females, though they are the minority. The customers will place one dollar bills into the elastic garment bindings of the dancers, or underneath the garters which are often worn on the dancers’ thighs. Sometimes, they’ll patrons will toss money onto the stage while the dancer is performing.

As well, to supplement their income, the dancers may often give private, or more reclusively intimate performances known as lap dances, where in they dance up close and personal to their patron, whom pays a much larger fee for the dance. During the dance, the dancer will often move about provocatively and sometimes rub her various body parts upon the patron.

This is all done for money.

Some might call it prostitution of sorts, and true, various Law Enforcement Officers have Vice Squads that deal with such issues, where frequently are found illicit narcotics, promotion of prostitution and a host of other criminal activity. Those dens are most definitely NOT “family friendly” environs.

At some times or another, various religious groups have attempted to close down such businesses, and governmental regulatory authorities attempt to strictly regulate such businesses, ostensibly to lower crime… which frequently accompanies such businesses. For some time, the business owners and their patrons (to a lesser extent, perhaps) whom are often at odds with religious and other community members, refer to the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, which in recent history has been interpreted to mean “freedom of expression.” And even with a conservative-leaning Supreme Court, various courts of jurisdiction have found it impractical to engage in legal fights over the business operations – at least the “entertainment” aspect of them – save to regulate their locales, hours of operation, and other ancillaries.

Now, however, it seems that the world’s most feminist nation has successfully eliminated prostitution, strip clubs and other forms of sexual “entertainment.”

Iceland, a tiny nation with little over 300,000 population, has almost completely closed down their “sexual entertainment industry” with a law that was unopposed in the national legislature. Making illegal any business to profit from the nudity of their employees, Iceland will be the first nation in the world to ban stripping and lap dancing for non-religious reasons. Kolbrún Halldórsdóttir, a female national-level politician whom proposed the ban, said, “It is not acceptable that women or people in general are a product to be sold.”

Guðrún Jónsdóttir of Stígamót, an organisation based in Reykjavik that campaigns against sexual violence, said “Last year we passed a law against the purchase of sex, recently introduced an action plan on trafficking of women, and now we have shut down the strip clubs. The Nordic countries are leading the way on women’s equality, recognising women as equal citizens rather than commodities for sale.”

She added that, “I guess the men of Iceland will just have to get used to the idea that women are not for sale.”

Norway, Finland, Sweden and the United Kingdom (as of April 1, 2010) have, to some degree, criminalized the purchase of sex.