The naked baby pictures were harmless, for the parents and almost all viewers. Liberace was a predatory homosexual, not “just” entertaining. (He was entertaining, too.)
Liberation of appetite does tend to perversion, because physical appetites are pretty basic. You were hungry, you ate something, you aren’t hungry anymore. You felt a genital urge, you screwed something, you don’t feel the urge for a bit.
When you try to get more out of it, you find that it isn’t there. No matter what you eat, there’s a limit to the enjoyment. No matter what or how you screw, it’s still just a screw. But if you think there’s a one-in-a-million experience out there, you’ll keep trying sicker and sicker stuff, reaching for an ultimate satisfaction that doesn’t exist.
At the end of the day, it’s still a simple, physical appetite, that can be dealt with in the simplest possible way.
My point is that WE never thought anything about it. Our minds weren’t on sex.
Movies & TV had codes to follow - yes a lot was covered up, but it was only the prurient who were interested in those sorts of things.
The dirty mags were thought of as just that - dirty.
It was only when the money people realized they could make a fortune selling sex that it became so pervasive.