I think you're off here in comparison. I'm not sure what the age of consent for sex is in England, I think it's 16, but the age of adulthood is 18.

So he's not off in the sense that she was an adult and he was still a legal child. If that had happened in some states in the US, she could have been arrested and charged for statutory rape.

It's not about the age gap, it's about when the age gap occurs.

I don't think we can assume he's think the same now, as such a gap, like what he currently has with his wife, wouldn't occur between phases of life (child/adult).

Thr Madonna situation has as much to do with too much plastic surgery. Remember what Michael Jackson looked like before he passed away? Or Joan Rivers? There comes a point where it's not going to work anymore and you just look "off", like a mannequin or an alien wearing a human suit. People are reacting to that.

It's also equally true that we're in the beginnings of a misogynistic backlash with the manosphere constantly promoting to men to bag a babe before they get old or have kids so they'll do what you tell them and won't be bitter. Make sure you always trade up, and shit like that.

If you saw Fucker Carlson's little meltdown with Jesse Kelly in Fox News over Chelsea Handler's comedy skit about not having children, you'll know what I mean.

There's a rise in eating disorders and cutting amongst young women and girls, as well as a rise in plastic surgery. The CDC just came out with a report saying that violence and depression are increasing dramatically in teenage girls.

Madonna has positioned herself squarely in a nexxus of those two things that you can't separate with any meaning. Yes, she's an older woman who is being targeted for being old and refusing to become invisible. How dare she (insert eye roll here). But she's also an icon a lot of young women look up to and always has been. Is she also a Pied Piper leading them toward self destruction? Given where young women are right now, your answer must be yes. Yes, she is.

In the end, she's not trailblazing away from the patriarchy is she's locked into an unholy alliance with it. Wealth in exchange for sex and looking young.

Now when she can get up on a stage and sing a song about the joys of sexual expression in a woman's crone stage of life and have an audience go wild? Win a Grammy for that? Be respected for that? ??

That's trailblazing.