Elvis met Priscilla when she was 14 and he was 24...they courted for eight years.
Jerry Lee Lewis married his 13 year old cousin!! Yikes!
As many have said, it was customary in this country up until the mid-1900’s, for men to marry much younger women. And, even later, in the South. Small, lightly populated farm towns, not much social life or scene. Closest neighbors could be a few miles away.
The fact that he didn’t even see her between her age of 16 to 24 proves that he wasn’t a sicko perv/predator, like Frankengroper.....like the media (as well as many, here) have made him out to be.
The whole thing really didn’t bother me and for the same reasons you point out. Still, I bet a lot of republicans with teenaged daughters/grand daughters nieces etc stayed home today.
The optics of him getting interviewed by a 12 year old girl recently probably didn’t help.
Personally, I doubt the whole groping thing but I don’t really doubt that he was attracted to them and dated some.