She’s doing the band

“Last living slut” and author Roxana Shirazi
on her Iranian roots, groupies and the boring
musicians she’s slept with

A FREE, HORNY SPIRIT: Shirazi

by CHRIS BARRY

She’s a hell of a lot smarter than most of the hair metal bands she’s boinked, holding a master of fine arts degree and regularly hitting the lecture circuit to yak about gender and identity. In her recently published memoirs, The Last Living Slut: Born in Iran, Bred Backstage, 30-something Roxana Shirazi spares no details recounting her nights hanging with the likes of Guns N’ Roses, Velvet Revolver, Skid Row and Mötley Crüe, forever seeking sexual fulfillment yet frequently finding herself disappointed with how tame her objects of desire wound up being when it came time to get down and dirty. When the Mirror caught up with her last month, she’d just learned that her dear friend and first rock ’n’ roll lover, Stereophonics drummer Stuart Cable, had died earlier in the day, so she was feeling somewhat morose and despondent. Nevertheless, dutiful slut that she is, Shirazi was more than happy to perk up and elaborate on her rock ’n’ roll adventures, Iranian women and who she’s hoping to bed in the future.

Mirror: What inspired you to write this book?

Roxana Shirazi: While at university, I decided I wanted to write a book about my life in Iran, my childhood, the war, things like that. And somebody there said, “Well, you follow all these rock bands around, why don’t you combine the two subjects and you’ll have a book with all these controversial themes in it?” And it just went from there.

M: Do you still have family in Iran, and if so, are they proud of having the world’s “last living slut” in their clan? Are you concerned there’ll be retribution from the Islamo-lunatic crowd?

RS: I do have family there but I doubt they’ve heard about the book. I hope not. Even if I sent them copies, they’d probably get prosecuted just for having this type of material in their hands. I haven’t insulted the Koran, Islam or Mohammed, but these Islamic fundamentalists are a very volatile people that could find any excuse, like, this girl is bringing a bad name to Islam or something. But I’m not especially worried, I haven’t had any death threats—yet. Iranian women are naturally very sensual. I was in Iran four years ago going to sex parties with these very passionate Iranian women. Everything’s underground there, but things still go on. It’s only the government that projects this… image, it’s not actually the people.

M: Do you hold much hope that Iran will ever stop being ruled by despots?

RS: I so hope so. It’s such a beautiful country, with beautiful beaches and mountains, and such rich history and culture. It’s just such a shame. We had the Shah prior to the revolution and that was bad, but still not as bad as it is now. There have always been very big student movements in Iran but unfortunately the authorities kill them. Once you go out and express an opinion or exercise freedom of speech of any kind, you get killed, that’s the price you have to pay there. So something has got to change. I just hope something happens soon to trigger it off. Hey, if I do get killed because of this book, maybe it won’t be in vain after all, maybe then more people will pay attention to what’s going on with the government in Iran—although I’m very anti-war and definitely wouldn’t want any outside powers interfering with Iran like they’ve done with Iraq.

Sex, fun and rock ’n’ roll

M: You don’t consider yourself a groupie in the Pamela Des Barres sense of the word, right?

RS: I’m too wild to be a groupie. I’m the rock star, the one who calls the shots. When I got into the rock ’n’ roll world, I was expecting it to be some wild, crazy utopian playground, but then I found there were all these rules for women. Pamela Des Barres was meek and subservient to the needs of the rock stars and I don’t play that role. I choose what I do and how I have fun. If a band’s boring, I get them to go find me another band who’s fun. I never felt I had to be of service to these people. I’m simply too wild, I’m more of a free spirit.

M: A feminist perhaps?

RS: I don’t like labels like that. When people think of feminism, it has connotations of being anti-men, a man-hater.

M: Among idiots, maybe, but….

RS: Okay then, let’s say I’m a humanist, a sex-positive feminist. I’m an open, free-spirited libertine not seeing sex as something bad or wrong. My book has empowering messages to women: don’t just be subservient to the guy, be yourself, have fun, be sexual within yourself and don’t do it just for somebody else.

M: I assume you’re trying to own the word “slut” here, like homosexuals have tried to do with the word “queer,” right?

RS: Yeah, I actually looked “slut” up in the dictionary and it says it’s somebody, especially a woman, who has many partners and does a lot of sexual experimentation. And this makes you a bad human being? Why? Surely you’re a bad human being if you’re cruel, mean or selfish, but what does your sexuality have to do with that?

Sexually promiscuous women are still vilified in society, so when I say I’m the last living slut, I mean of the negative kind, in the negative sense of the word. You see the way some men are regarded as man-whores, male sluts, and it’s all done with this sort of slap on the back of, “Yeah, you’re a man, sticking to your role as a guy.” Where with women, you’re vilified. There’s such a difference between how sexually promiscuous men and women are viewed. It’s the same even in rock ’n’ roll, where I’d always romanticized that you could be anything you want, do anything you want, do whoever you want and not be judged for it. But I guess I was thinking of the way it was in the ’60s and ’70s. There are so many backward people in rock ’n’ roll. I was so surprised to see how pervasive these attitudes were.

Shut up and look good

M: I’ve met a few people you discuss in your book, and with all due respect, these are some pretty stupid fucks you’ve been palling around with. Maybe that has something to do with it.

RS: It’s true, all these guys I liked were in hair metal bands, not exactly Bono. They like to talk about beer. But for me, it was more, “Yeah, these guys have the tattoos, the eyeliner, the long hair—these bad boys might give me a really wild ride.” It was the look, the image of these really bad boys that attracted me, like a lot of girls. The hair metal bands just seemed like they’d be the wildest.

M: You write about your disappointment with these bands, that they weren’t as “wild” as you’d wanted them to be.

RS: Well, I always had to initiate the fun. I was the one who’d hang out with Buckcherry, going, “Please, come on guys, I’m horny, let’s all have sex, with me.” Like Mötley Crüe, those guys have already been there, done it, lived the life, they’re no longer how they were in the ’80s. I thought these bands were going to teach me stuff, wild stuff. But I was always the one going, “Let’s try this, let’s expand on this sexually.” And I got tired of always being the teacher. I wanted to be out of control and helpless and told what to do, be shown stuff I’d never seen before, be taken to places I’ve never been to. I thought these guys would be more rock ’n’ roll. After the gigs finished I’d be, like, “Let’s get some chicks, let’s go to some strip clubs, let’s go party, let’s have some fun,” but most of them would want to go to bed at a reasonable hour with a cup of tea. And I’d be, like, “Aw, come on, man, you can’t go to bed now, that’s not rock ’n’ roll.” But some of these stars are older guys, they need their sleep. Truth is most of them were quite boring.

M: How many people do you figure you’ve boffed in your time?

RS: I only lost my virginity at 24, so…. maybe 50 or 60.

M: That’s it!? Seriously? What kind of slut are you anyway?!

RS: Judging by your reaction, apparently not a very good one. But it’s not the amount of people I’ve slept with but what I did with them. I’m into pushing boundaries, experimentation, I’m very much into girls, very much into doing things in wild places. It’s more the activities that I did, like doing the whole band at the same time, water sports and things like that which people might be shocked by, more than the actual amount of guys I’ve had.

M: What are you into musically?

RS: I never really listened to that ’80s hair metal stuff, you know. I love classic rock, the Doors, Hendrix, Floyd. I like Kings of Leon, but that’s more because I’d like to do them all.

M: Who else would you like to bed?

RS: Rage Against the Machine, Steven Tyler. I’m going on tour with Stone Temple Pilots soon so hopefully they’ll be some real fun. I guess we’ll just have to find out.

THE LAST LIVING SLUT: BORN IN
IRAN, BRED BACKSTAGE, BY
ROXANA SHIRAZI, HARPER
COLLINS, 315PP., $33.99