"Like a Virgin is really a portrait of Madonna's uncanny pop instincts empowered by her impatient zeal for creative growth and her innate knack for crafting a good record. ... The mere fact that at the time of its release so many couldn't resist commenting on the record was a testament to the continuous, growing fascination with Madonna ... Every important artist has at least one album in his or her career whose critical and commercial success becomes the artist's magic moment; for Madonna, Like a Virgin was just such a defining moment."
Madonna's public persona of an indomitable, sexually unashamed, supremely confident woman struck a chord with [the younger generation]. ... With the song, Madonna became the last word in attitude and fashion for young girls of that time. ... At a time when eighties fashions were promoting flat-chested, stick-thin women as ideals of beauty, the more curvaceous Madonna made average girls feel that it was fine to be in the shape they were. A new word called 'Madonna wannabe' was introduced to describe the thousands of girls who tried to emulate Madonna's style. At one point, Macy's allotted an entire floor area for the sale of clothes styled according to Madonna's fashion.
University professors, gender-studies experts and feminists earnestly started discussing her role as a post-modernist style and cultural icon. In 1993, a conference was held at the University of California at Santa Barbara, with the subject as Madonna: Feminist Icon or Material Girl? The conference pondered on the duality of Madonna as both of them and deduced that the question of Madonna's feminism is not easy to decide. Some of the feminists left the conference, citing that they had not been able to make up their minds.
"Dress You Up" was also the subject of much media attention, when it was included on the Parents Music Resource Center's (PMRC) "Filthy Fifteen" list, for the perceived sexual content of its lyrics. The PMRC called upon the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) to give parents a consumer-friendly means of identifying rock records unsuitable for minorsa rating system based on lyrical content. "Dress You Up" received a rating of 'S', for "sex and obscenity", from the RIAA.
Madonna performed "Like a Virgin" at the first MTV Video Music Awards in 1984, where she appeared on stage atop a giant wedding cake dressed in a wedding dress, adorned with the infamous "Boy Toy" belt buckle, and veil. The climax of her risqué performance found her "humping" and rolling around on the stage. To this day, the performance is noted as one of the most iconic and biggest performances in MTV's history