Roxana Shirazi - The Last Living Slut: Born in Iran, Bred Backstage

Andres Lesauvage

She stood there, alone, at the train crossing in San Clemente, California, an explosion of denim and hair extensions, with a battered laptop in her hands.

That was the first time we saw her.

Shed taken the train from Los Angeles to show us her manuscript. We were on deadline for our own books, so we said she had an hour.

Eight hours later, some friends had joined us and we were all sitting drunk in a cabin on the beach, listening rapt as Roxana Shirazi read portions of the tale that follows.

It was the best Saturday night wed had in a while.

Do you want me to stop? shed ask in her demure English accent.

What else have you got? wed ask.

Theres the one where I got Avenged Sevenfold to pee on me.

Yes, for Gods sake. Read that one!

At the time, this wasnt a book yet. It was a collection of detailed notes, essays, snapshots, and journal entries of her experiences in hotels, on tour buses, and backstage mingled with childhood reminiscences. And not only was each one riveting, shining a light into the trapdoors of the rockand-roll circus, but it was told in such a unique voice. The writing was muscular, ornate, and unapologetic. This was a woman who was not a victim, but who made rock bands her victimand got off on pushing them to extremes that made them uncomfortable. She believed the rock-and-roll myth, and when she was unable to find anyone who lived up to it, she chose to embody it herself. Until she made the mistake of falling in love with a rock star.

All of this, in addition to her disturbing sexual coming of age in Tehran in the midst of the Iranian revolution, gelled into a story wed never heard before. At least not told like this.

We had to get it published.

We sent a few choice excerpts to several editors and agents. They all said that after reading them, they couldnt get the images out of their head. Yet they refused to put the book into print. Like the rock bands Shirazi had seduced, they said the book was out of their comfort zone. It was too much.

So we decided to put it out ourselves.

The Last Living Slut is a beautiful memoir of growing up in the political turbulence of Tehran; an unflinching portrait of teenage cultural dislocation in London; a backstage romp that makes Pamela Des Barres Im With the Band read like a nuns diary in comparison; a white-knuckled tale of jilted love and brutal revenge; and the most gripping real-life account of female depravity weve ever read.

The rockers mentioned in this book may still have the Polaroids, but you now have the images. And they are unforgettable. We promise you that.

Neil Strauss and Anthony Bozza
Igniter Books

Quite simply with a lot of partners.

When describing a male who frequently engages in sexual activity with a lot of partners, the words often used are stud, player, horndog, and so onand sometimes male slut. However male slut is a label that men usually wear with pride; it is a term of approval and envy. A male who frequently has sex with a lot of partners is patted on the back, looked up to with admiration because he is merely carrying out a role that is assigned to him as a man. It is seen as a progressive step toward the development of masculinity. It is celebrated and encouraged. It is the equivalent of childish misbehaviour and being naughty.

With females, however, the disapproval is taken to the realm of stigmatization.

A females pursuit of sexual pleasure and sexual adventure is still seen as a negative characteristic, somehow making her a bad human being. A female is not defined in terms of her humanity, but in terms of her sex life.

So, logically, does enjoying sex with different partners make someone a bad person? How can an individuals sex life define them wholly as a human being? Surely human beings should be measured by their human qualities and characteristics: kind-hearted, funny, lazy, expressive, determined, shy, mean, boring, bossy, happy-go-lucky, and so on.

Sex, even though its just a small segment of our existence, is still such a beautiful, sensual experience, and exploring ones sexuality and sexual diversity should be respected and celebrated.

In this book, I am the last living slut embodying the negative meaning of the word, and the first living slut embodying a new, positive, and celebrated meaning of the word. Some will say that the word slut can never be independent from social and historical meanings attached to it (just like nigger or queer) and will always be bound and steeped in the negative sense of the word, and thus there should be a new word to describe a sexually active and experimental individual to detach it completely from its previous meaning. Well, maybe, but in this book at least I have been conceited enough to give myself the authority to change the meaning of a word. Love your body, love your sexuality, and realize that you are a bad human being only if you are unkind and cruel and do harm unto othersand not because of your sex life.

Roxana Shirazi

As much as I would love to write about how gender is socially constructedand how the concepts of masculine and feminine are merely performances that have been produced as truths and taught to us from birthI have a story to begin.

Please note that the term sex always means consensual sex. Any sexual act that is not consensual is not sex; it is an act of violence.

June 9

Roxana wants to do the whole band, Tommy Lee says to Nikki Sixx, pointing at me. I sway between them, dressed in white linen and lace, eyes glistening with liquid warm honey, mouth parted like meat, body needing to be double-penetrated by these two rock legends.

Mick would die, I murmur, mindful of Mick Mars degenerative bone condition, yet relishing the headline that would accompany the act: Death By Sex: Girl Kills Rock Star Mid-Fornication.

Vince Neils vice for the day is two bone-brittle blondes, the type whose eating disorders are just another accessory. Its afternoon, high summer, and were indoors under the intestinal-tube fluorescent lights by Mtley Cres dressing rooms at Download Festival. The reek of emo emanates from every corner as little boy bands slumber and lounge, all panda-eyed and girlie-haired. They are elfin boys with big ears and crayoned black liner proudly gunked on, who have scrawled angst and pain and I hate my parents on their striped tops. They pretend to be aloof on the steps of their porta-cabin dressing rooms, as if they dont notice the detonating presence of rock royaltyMtley Cre.

I drink Earl Grey tea from a frail cup as Tommy Lee offers to feed me Jgermeister. Teenage girls dressed in 50s diner-waitress chic look at him, all doe-eyed Pollyannas. They are fluff, chicken feed. And I shoo them away. Tommy kicks out the girls I brought for him because they look like groupies: all ripped fishnets and synthetic dresses. I speak Greek with him because hes half Greek. He is a hyperactive, kindhearted toddler on speed in a mans lanky, skinny, tattooed shell. Hes toothy, and has dimples and a rasping gasoline voice that fucks me in the cunt.

But I want Nikki Sixx, my Elvis, inside me as well.

Im a squirter, I tell Sixx.

We like that, dont we, Tommy? he says, his voice a gooey slur, marinated in decades of distilled degeneracy.

Tommy takes me to his dressing room and locks the door as his bodyguard assumes the position outside. He cranks up the techno music hes so in love with to gangrene-inducing levels.