I dont think the innocence was as important as keeping the Non Innocent stuff away from kids and the population in general.
That democrat that said Clinton was defining deviancy down nailed it.
Back then, if an actor or singer or media personality had some quite immortal habits, they kept it to themselves because normalizing it would set a new LOW bar.
People will stray from the bar that is set in a country.
The higher the bar the better. So PRETENDING to be a moral good guy when you are in the spotlight is important.
Because straying from that point shouldn’t be too extreme.
If immoral IS the bar that is set...then SICK and VILE things are the bar below.
Boy I used the word BAR a lot :)
Those few remaining degrees evaporated within a decade there after. That was 1962, by 1969 the erosion began & then rapidly set in. By 1972 is was speeding towards degeneracy at warp speed. The only thing holding it back was our parents generation, who put us on that path but with limits. Those limits were sliding as more & more passed from this earth.