From an objective standpoint, I think the turning point for these opinions was far more recent, and if I had to point to a specific year, I would say 2004 with the debut of Chris Hanson's 'To Catch a Predator' on Dateline NBC.
Prior to this, I don't even remember being exposed to the idea or concept of this. I never heard people talk about it, but in a way this show changed or I guess really even created opinions on this subject.
From a non objectivist perspective, just because I never heard of it prior, it seems to have been an epidemic and maybe I was lucky enough to not have thought about it.
I lost my virginity at 15 to someone many years older than me, but I didn't have a second thought about it, it was like anything else - drinking, smoking, staying out late, this idea that maybe I was too young, but also that everyone else did it, and that's as far as I ever considered it.
I grew up in a different time though, before the Internet, small town, and low income and people I came into contact with didn't even put these things into ideas with words if that makes sense.
I think at best I understood that older men could be untoward with younger folks, but it was treated more as a joke, or something to keep in mind around older relatives and strangers, but not an imminent threat, more like an annoyance to be put up with.
I think it's okay to talk about this, and I'm sorry for your trauma. Protecting children is super important, and so the increased talk of this subject I think helps and protects more, but there is an undeniable generational difference in how people even think about this.
I grew up thinking of this as not even an idea, so I wouldn't have thought about it being worse than anything else. I would have been more scared of drug addicts, and the homeless.