NEW YORK — A new Las Vegas game gets thrill-seekers out of the casinos and into the great wide open — to shoot naked women with paintball guns.
In "Hunting for Bambi," men pay $10,000 each for the challenge of tracking the women, who are nude except for sneakers, and trying to blast them with colored paint.
"You can actually hunt one of our Bambi [expletive] and shoot her with paintballs," Mike Burdick, who runs the game and the site for Real Men Outdoor Productions, says on his Web site, www.huntingforbambi.com.
According to the site, the hunters also have the option of mounting their prey when they're done — and having sex with the women.
Despite criticism that the game is sick and barbaric, Burdick said it was all in fun and caters to both male and female fantasies.
"The majority of women have a deep-seated fantasy of that bad-boy image, to be sought after by a stranger," he told Fox News, adding that the women get paid $1,000 to participate in the game — and $2,500 if they avoid getting hit.
Women's groups and legal experts are, not surprisingly, up in arms over the cruel game.
"I couldn't quite believe it. [The site] advertised this as really hurting people," said legal expert Susan Estrich on Fox News. "[They're] violating about 20 criminal laws, including assault."
The National Organization for Women has also spoken out against the game.
"It's appalling, and it's really frightening," Rita Haley, president of NOW's New York City chapter, told the New York Post. "It says something about the men who want to play this game and something about the financial climate that drives women to participate. The big fear is that somebody who plays will eventually want to use real bullets."
But at least one woman who has participated as a target in "Bambi" said people are over-reacting.
"We're not getting hurt that bad," Taylor, who didn't give a last name, told Fox News. "[The paintballs] don't hurt as bad as everyone says they do. It's about as bad as getting slugged in the arm."
