Madonna, misogyny and the menopause

Suzanne Harrington takes a fan’s approach to hunting out the the elephant in the room. Madonna, she says has highlighted the fact that women after 50 are regarded as cultural castrati and should leave the sexual arena quietly — and to the young and beautiful.

RECENTLY on stage at Coachella, during the performance of a track titled ‘Bitch I’m Madonna’, there was an Ageist Kissing Incident. The pop queen of the same name (age 56, album sales 300 million) gave Canadian rapper Drake (age 28, album sales five million) an unscripted kiss — not a peck on the cheek, but an actual snog.

The rapper’s reaction was viscerally ungracious; it was as though he had been licked by ebola, his face curling in disgust as he wiped his hand across his mouth. Afterwards, having realised his epic faux pas, he backtracked on Twitter: “Don’t misinterpret my shock!! I got to make out with the queen Madonna and I feel 100 about that forever.” (100? What? Years old?)