My interpretation is that they were always pervs. Now they are busted pervs thanks to the internet.
Remember that many of the cases of child molestation by priests/preachers etc occurred during times that we remember as being 'safe'. Turns out they were not so much safe as covered up. Respectable citizens indeed.
My great grandmother once told me about a child rapist / murderer caught near where she lived in northern michigan in the early part of the last century. She made a cryptic comment about some of the local fathers taking him on a tour of the steel mill in the middle of the night and he never came back to town.
Growing up in the citrus belt in Florida I was walking several blocks to visit a friend in my rural neighborhood in 1965. A car pulls beside me, pushes the car door open an offers me a ‘ride’. Had a car not come over the hill (very rare) in the opposite direction, causing the pedophile to speed off, who knows what may have happened.
There have always been perverts. We are just more aware of them now. (and probably know one or two)