Chrissie Hynde calls young female musicians "sex workers".

She’s had a lot to say recently.

A couple of weeks ago, Chrissie Hynde, 63, most famous for being the lead singer of the Pretenders, made some fairly disturbing comments to the Sunday Times about being responsible for her own rape when she was 21 years old.

“If I’m walking around in my underwear and I’m drunk? Who else’s fault can it be?” was one of the fairly inflammatory things she said at the time.

Now she’s attacking contemporary pop stars for their hyper-sexualised images, branding them “sex workers” during an interview on BBC Women’s Hour yesterday.

“I don’t think sexual assault is a gender issue as such, I think it’s very much… it’s all around us now. It’s provoked by this pornography culture, it’s provoked by pop stars who call themselves feminists.

“Maybe they’re feminists on behalf of prostitutes — but they are not feminists on behalf of music, if they are selling their music by bumping and grinding and wearing their underwear in videos,” Hynde said.

“That’s a kind of feminism but, you know, you’re a sex worker, is what you are.”

Contemporary pop stars aren’t taking control of their own bodies in the name of feminism, she suggested, but rather reducing themselves to sexual objects for the male gaze.

“I would say those women are responsible for a great deal of damage,” she said.

The remarks she’s been making recently mostly pertain to stories she’s related in her memoir Reckless, published in Australia at the beginning of the month.

The rape she spoke about happened in Ohio, when an Ohio motorbike gang member told her he’d take her to a party but instead took her to an abandoned house. He threatened her with violence unless she complied with his sexual demands.

Of that incident wrote in her book:

“Technically speaking, however you want to look at it, this was all my doing and I take full responsibility. You can’t fuck about with people, especially people who wear ‘I Heart Rape’ and ‘On Your Knees’ badges… those motorcycle gangs, that’s what they do.

“You can’t paint yourself into a corner and then say whose brush is this? You have to take responsibility. I mean, I was naive.”

In the Sunday Times last week, she reiterated her belief that the assault, in which the bikers forced her to strip and threw lit matches at her naked torso then sexually assaulted her, was her own fault.

“If I’m walking around in my underwear and I’m drunk? Who else’s fault can it be?

“If I’m walking around and I’m very modestly dressed and I’m keeping to myself and someone attacks me, then I’d say that’s his fault. But if I’m being very lairy and putting it about and being provocative, then you are enticing someone who’s already unhinged – don’t do that. Come on! That’s just common sense.

“You know, if you don’t want to entice a rapist, don’t wear high heels so you can’t run from him.

“If you’re wearing something that says ‘Come and fuck me’, you’d better be good on your feet… I don’t think I’m saying anything controversial am I?”

Actually, she really was.

Hynde has always been outspoken in her views, particularly about subjects she’s passionate about.

In 2003, she proclaimed on-stage, “We deserve to get bombed. I hope the Muslims win!”

She was also known as a passionate vegan and animal activist, but she’s reined it in over recent years.

“If you talk about something that’s really important to you and someone doesn’t want to know, they won’t respond very well to that. So just shut up. Being quiet is important. We could all use more of that. More quiet,” she told the Guardian last year.

Good advice, Chrissie.

What do you think of hypersexualised contemporary pop stars? Do they contribute to rape culture?