They had not yet learned to draw the significant but often very fine distinction between smut and pure science. For the good reason that they were made to meet. You rule with the brain and the buttocks, never with the fists. Happiness is never grand. Even the poorest government is rich enough to provide its subjects with a substantial measure of death control.
Birth control is a very different matter.
Every change is a menace to stability. Chronic remorse is a most undesirable sentiment. If you have behave badly, repent, make what amends you can and address yourself to the task of behaving better next time. On no account brood over your wrongdoing. Rolling in the muck is not the best way of getting clean.