 Liberal defenders of the right to pornography may thus allow that restrictions on its public display may be justified. But only if pornography can reliably be shown to cause significant harm to people other than those consenting adults involved in its production and consumption will there be a legitimate case for prohibiting its voluntary private consumption. When an individual’s private activities cause harm to others, they become no longer merely a private matter but of legitimate public interest; and the state may be justified in regulating them. Thus, Dworkin says, were excessive consumption of pornography shown to cause absenteeism from work, then the public and the state might have some legitimate interest in preventing it. But, Dworkin thinks, there is as yet no reliable evidence that firmly establishes that the voluntary private production or consumption of pornography by consenting adults causes this or any other sufficiently significant harm to others in the relevant sense of “harm.” Hence, pornography satisfies only harmless personal preferences for sexual gratification and is therefore none of the state’s business.