Invent a Sexual Perversion

Purple text on a yellow background.

“Be Creative, Invent a Sexual Perversion” was a phrase featured on merchandise originally sold in the Kazoo Bookstore on Fairfax in Los Angeles, California. This bookstore was one of several owned by the L.A. Free Press, the country’s first and most successful underground newspaper. Art Kunkin, a member of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), first launched The L.A. Free Press in 1964. While it labeled itself as a liberal newspaper, it took shots at both parties and the shortcomings of the country’s two-party system. It gained a substantial following after its reporting of the Watts Uprising in 1965. The bookstore and advertisements were once mentioned by The New Yorker’s, Renata Adler who had visited the store. Aside from wearable motifs like buttons, the store carried posters, cigarette papers, roach clips, and obscure books and pamphlets on various topics including drugs and Eastern religions.