 One novel and strategically ingenious feature of MacKinnon’s argument against pornography (and one that has provoked much of the more recent interest and debate) is her conceptualization of the harm of pornography as the violation of women’s civil rights, of which sexual violence against women may be but one, albeit significant, dimension. The violation of civil rights is a harm that most liberals have special reason for taking very seriously. While some liberals understand the notion of “harm” to others very narrowly, as including only physical interference with a person’s bodily integrity (e.g., murder, battery, torture, kidnap, rape and other such physical assaults), most liberals nowadays are inclined to accept a slightly broader interpretation of the harm principle. On this broader, interest- or rights-based interpretation of the harm principle, any speech or conduct that willfully or negligently interferes with important interests or rights of others is harmful conduct. On this interest-based interpretation of the harm principle, the state is entitled to pass laws against conduct that deliberately or negligently interferes with the rights of others, just so long as the rights-violation is sufficiently serious and the harm cannot effectively be prevented by other, less costly means (for example, through public education or debate). Of course, how this version of the harm principle applies depends crucially on the nature and relative importance of the rights that individuals have; and this is the subject of much ongoing debate.