DanMargarita.com

Several news outlets have recently reported that a Las Vegas company has developed a game in which men can pay $10,000 to shoot paintballs at naked women.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got nothing against naked women (insert your own punchline here). I’d like to say that some of my best friends are naked women, but that would both be inaccurate and logistically unfeasible. Although, I guess Hugh Heffner could make that claim.

Real Men Outdoor Productions has supposedly developed a game called “Hunting for Bambi,” which you’ve likely guessed by now doesn’t involve blowing the head off of a cute, cartoon Disney character. The game features Vegas showgirls, clad only in sneakers, who are the target for paintball gun-wielding men that, according to some reports, have the option of having sex with their prey after the “hunt.” I imagine this is more tempting than if one were hunting grizzly bears.

For their troubles, the women are paid $1,000 to participate, and those that successfully avoid their predators receive $2,500. No mention was made if this includes a dental plan.

“Paintball” originally began as an attempt to simulate a real war experience without the danger of actually getting killed. Eventually it became a male-bonding experience that fudged battlefield simulations. I doubt that even in the drug influenced, Doors era of Vietnam that soldiers brought a keg of beer with them while out on maneuvers in the jungle.

Naturally, women’s organizations are up in (clothed) arms. A spokeswoman for The National Organization for Women, Rita Haley, told the N.Y. Post that “It’s appalling, and it’s really frightening” as a pellet of crimson whizzed by her head.

There have been no reports of pickets, but I imagine that if the woman participants decided to stage a public protest they could draw quite a crowd.

Women have fought long and hard to be viewed as something other than sex objects, but the battle hasn’t always been successful. A few years back some radio d.j.’s began a campaign that they called “Whip ‘em Out Wednesday.” The idea was that on any given Wednesday any woman seeing a vehicle sporting one of the radio station’s “W.O.W.” bumper stickers, was supposed to immediately bare her breasts to the driver.

Again, don’t get me wrong. If a woman wants to show me her breasts, I’m more than happy to view them, but only if that’s her desire. The notion that a woman must show her breasts on command is atrocious.

“We are not about degrading women” says a “Bambi” spokesman in the Post article, adding “Nobody’s being arm-twisted.” Arm-twisting will probably cost an extra $1,000.

It seems like a huge step backward. We’ve gone from HBO’s woman-empowering “Sex in the City” to the degrading “Sex in the Shrubbery.”

There has been some suggestion that this is a hoax, and a gander at their website (which I won’t aid in promoting) shows some things that seem too far-fetched to be believed. On the other hand, there’s not too much that I wouldn’t believe these days.

And to think, Elmer Fudd was content to merely hunt “wabbits.”