text: what did people do for pornography before photography was invented?   painting / sketches, burlesque shows, erotic fiction, etc.  a lot of what we read about that we don't pay attention to (risque poetry, etc.) would have been considered very dirty when it was written.   i'd dare say, though, that people used their imaginations a lot more than we do today.  they certainly weren't any less horny, even if they were more restrained in some cultures (not all, though -- ancient romans, for example, were pretty perverted.)