Charlotte Church has attacked the sexism of the "juvenile" male-dominated music industry, which she said was increasingly creating and promoting child-like sex objects.

The singer, who became a teenage star with her album Voice of an Angel, has backed calls for an age-ratings system for near-the-knuckle music videos and said radio executives needed to shoulder some responsibility for play-listing artists who relied on "soft porn" to boost their profile.

She spoke of her concern about sexual imagery to sell music, with singer Miley Cyrus appearing naked in her video for the single Wrecking Ball, in a speech to radio executives.

Church, who like Cyrus found success in her early teens, told how she faced considerable pressure to promote her music in ever more suggestive outfits and she said the legacy of revealing outfits is that she faces a barrage of abuse online, being called a "slut" and a "whore".

In the John Peel Lecture at the annual Radio Festival in Salford, she warned many younger stars succumbed to the pressure to sell their sexuality.

She added: "Now I find it difficult to promote my music in the places where it would be best suited because of my 'history'. But at the time it was the option presented to me."

Church, 27, said women were being "coerced" into sexual roles to cling on to their careers and she classified women who were overtly using sexual imagery to boost their careers, such as Rihanna and Cyrus, as "unattainable sexbots".

She said that approach was "the most commonly employed and most damaging, a role that is also often claimed to be an empowering one".

Church added: "The irony behind this is that the women generally filling these roles are very young, often previous child stars or Disney-tweens, who are simply interested in getting along in an industry glamourised to be the most desirable for young women.

"They are encouraged to present themselves as hyper-sexualised, unrealistic, cartoonish, as objects, reducing female sexuality to a prize you can win."