The popular singer Chrissie Hynde has been reprimanded by feminist campaigners for speaking common sense. Hynde, who is somewhat more astute than most landfill rock slebs, has advanced the proposition that women should take a degree of precaution to ensure that they are not sexually attacked by men. Such as not wandering the streets, pissed out of their skulls, in their underwear. She told the Sunday Times:
‘You can’t paint yourself into a corner and then say whose brush is this? You have to take responsibility.
If you play with fire you get burnt. It’s not any secret, is it?
‘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!’
Come on indeed. But there has been a furious response from rape support groups. The gist of their argument being that women should never ever have to take responsibility for how they behave, how drunk they are, etc. Hynde had been talking about an occasion when she was young and willingly accompanied a man with an ‘I Love Rape’ patch on his jeans into a deserted building late at night. The rapist is of course not exonerated. Nobody in their right minds would suggest such a thing. But it is not a perfect world, is it?
Also, Talk of the Town was a very good single.
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