Bob Mizer, Lynn Womack, and John Barrington, being jailed as a result. In the 1940s, before the first physique magazines, physique photographers like Bob Mizer and Al Urban were the subject of investigations by postal inspectors for distributing their photos through the mail. A pattern which continued through the era of the physique magazine was that the photographer or publisher would usually ultimately succeed at trial (sometimes after one or more appeals), but bore a significant financial burden in fighting the case. In addition to producers, consumers of physique magazines were also sometimes subject to prosecution. Among the best known examples was a 1959 case in Massachusetts involving seven "physique enthusiasts" found to be in the possession of "obscene photographs and literature" which included physique magazines like Grecian Guild Pictorial, MANual, and Gym. As a result of the scandal, one of the seven, Newton Arvin, an esteemed professor of literature at Smith College, was forced out of his teaching position and subsequently hospitalized for suicidal depression. List of magazines According to Thomas Waugh, there were "well over one hundred" pre-Stonewall physique magazines in the English-speaking world, and many more non-English publications originating from northern Europe. However, many of these were of a "fly-by-night" character, and are therefore poorly documented. Legacy Scholar David K. Johnson identifies the years from 1951 (the debut of Physique Pictorial) to 1967 as the "physique era". Thomas Waugh describes the magazines as peaking between 1955 and 1965. Physique magazines had largely disappeared by the end of the 1960s, as new legal precedent allowed full-frontal nudity and frank discussion of homosexuality. Some titles transitioned to more explicit content in order to remain viable. Physique Pictorial transitioned from physique photos to full nudes in 1969, and remained in print until 1990. See also Physique photography List of gay pornographic magazines Gay pulp fiction Bara (genre) Notes Citations References Further reading Barron, Jerome A. and Dienes, C. Thomas, First Amendment Law, St. Paul, Minn.: West Publishing Co., 1993, Streitmatter, Rodger and Watson, John C., "Herman Lynn Womack: Pornographer as First Amendment Pioneer," Journalism History, 28:56 (Summer 2002) LGBT-related magazines published in the United States Defunct magazines published in the United States Magazine genres