[1] It was the first case in which the Court engaged in plenary review of a Post Office Department order holding obscene matter "nonmailable".

They operated under the alibi of being for exercise enthusiasts or art students, but it was generally well understood that they were actually produced for and mostly read by gay men.

Physique publishers and photographers frequently faced legal troubles, particularly from postal inspectors, who vigorously enforced the Comstock laws' prohibitions against transmitting obscene materials through the mail.

Womack's case was the first involving the physique trade (or any sort of gay content) to reach the Supreme Court.

[5] On March 25, 1960, the postmaster in Alexandria, Virginia, seized six parcels containing 405 copies of three physique magazines published by Womack: MANual, Trim, and Grecian Guild Pictorial.

Justice Hugo Black, who took an absolutist approach to First Amendment jurisprudence, concurred in the result but did not join the opinion.

Reaching back to the Hicklin test, Harlan argued that for materials to be obscene requires two distinct elements: patent offensiveness and an appeal to prurient interest.

"[We] need go no further in the present case than to hold that the magazines in question, taken as a whole, cannot, under any permissible constitutional standard, be deemed to be beyond the pale of contemporary notions of rudimentary decency.

Section 1461 said that advertising could render materials obscene, and Chief Justice Earl Warren (concurring in Roth) had agreed on constitutional grounds.

Brennan noted that the Post Office Department General Counsel had initially refused to even hold a formal hearing, wishing to seize the materials without giving Womack a chance for rebuttal.

A variety of means were at the government's disposal, including recently enacted provisions to return the items, deny the use of postal banks, refund of monies collected, and more.

Clark would have affirmed the judgment of the district court on the grounds that the magazines contained information about where obscene material could be obtained.

Clark rejected Brennan's analysis because the government's authority under Section 1461 was not presented or argued by either the plaintiff or respondent, and thus was not before the Court.

Clark, however, concluded that the legislative history of Section 1461 clearly permitted postmasters to refuse mailed materials which were known to be obscene.

For the dissent, the fact that postal regulations had been in existence since 1902 without challenge weighed heavily in favor of this interpretation of the legislative history.

Justice Felix Frankfurter suffered a stroke several months after hearing oral argument in the case; he did not participate in the decision.

His successor, Justice Byron White, was confirmed to the Court after oral argument in the case occurred; he did not participate in either its consideration or the decision.