> I not sure I can believe all that. I do believe porm can be addictive for some folks because I knew a guy who had barrels full of hard core porn magazines at his metal fabrication shop in Hollywood when I was young teen in the 70s. He must've had 1000s of them.

There is a massive difference in the content and consumption rate of your guy with the barrels versus the average 18 year old. It took him years to amass that much, and I doubt he consumed them all. Each one cost a few bucks, and he had to physically go to some seedy adult shop to buy them. There was friction involved in his "addiction" (if it's even that; some people are just collectors/hoarders).

Today, you can pull up infinite-scrolling pages and HD video of just about anything without leaving the house, for free. Your consumption ability is limited only by your penis not being torn to bloody shreds. Porn exists that breaks the fourth wall and directs the viewer to do everything from watching more porn, to consuming your own effluent, all the way to conditioning you to renounce your sexual orientation and getting a sex change. Something is different these days, and it doesn't appear to be a net positive, considering the suicide statistics.

Recovering and reviewing browser histories is a function of my day job; in my experience, escalation is real, but I do have to admit bias in that the instances I see are almost always suspected to be exploitation cases to begin with. It sounds absurd that someone could start with Playboy and end at CSAM but it does happen over the course of years, to people who consume porn like the rest of us eat, drink, socialize with friends and converse with our families. It becomes an entire lifestyle unto itself.

One case literally saw the guy progress from porn to nudism to swinging with his wife, then to him looking for rub-and-tugs (post-divorce), gay, then trans escorts (not judgment-- neither were available during his swinging phase due to known intolerance of both within that community), and then he was outed by a Chris Hansen-type when he attempted to meet a child for sex. Depression and a hypersexual lifestyle don't lend themselves to rational thought. This guy wasn't even gay or a pedophile (no previous history by any account, nor any CSAM artifacts I discovered), but as his timeline documented his downfall, it screamed desperation (at one point he did seek mental health treatment, failed to find it, and consoled himself with...porn. A therapist will see you for an hour next month. Porn is always there for you.). The "child" in this case, he didn't even seek out-- they approached him on a popular hookup app; he was desperate enough that he attempted to pursue the opportunity. (Yes, this was entrapment; no, he wasn't prosecuted-- but his family and friends were blasted with the footage.)

You may deny the possibility because you haven't walked that path and never will-- good for you and godspeed. Inasmuch as porn can be an addiction (apparently this is up for debate?), there are high-functioning users, and there are total fucking trainwrecks. The latter are prone to progressively-increasing usage, at higher doses, escalating to eventual "overdose" when nothing does the job anymore. I'd attest the same thing with drug users happens here, because it's less about the vice itself and more about chasing diminishing returns of dopamine and the methods by which they are obtained. This isn't a porn-exclusive problem, but I do think in the context of porn there are some unfortunate side effects because of its private nature and low cost of consumption-- you can only hide gambling losses or excessive drug use for so long. With porn, there's an unusual danger in that it may take an arrest involving public humiliation, harassment and battery before you even know you have a problem-- because insight into your porn usage is necessarily concealed from anyone inclined to help you. Someone could have helped the guy above...if they knew he was struggling, and what with.

That said, I don't agree with Texas' approach--they're being too extreme--but try to keep an open mind. Porn obviously doesn't lead to these outcomes for most users, and it's fucked for Texas to assert that it does. The truth is found somewhere in the middle, between your own opinion and that of the state of Texas. In my experience, for some people, it really can be as bad as Texas claims.