Hunting for Bambi

LuAnne Sorrell, KLAS-TV Reporter

(July 10) -- It's a new form of adult entertainment, and men are paying thousands of dollars to shoot naked women with paint ball guns. They're coming to Las Vegas to do it. This bizarre new sport has captured the attention of people around the world, but Channel 8 Eyewitness News reporter LuAnne Sorrell is the only person who has interviewed the game's founder.

George Evanthes has never been hunting. "Originally I'm from New York. What am I going to hunt Squirrels Someone's cats. Someone's dogs I don't think so," said Evanthes. Now that he's living in Las Vegas , he's finally getting his chance to put on his camouflage, grab a rifle and pull the trigger, but what's in his scope may surprise you. He's not hunting ducks or even deer. He's hunting woman. Naked women.

"I've done this three times," says Nicole, one of the three women allowing themselves to be shot at. "I've done this seven times," says Skyler, another woman participating. "I've done it seven times," says Gidget the third woman.

Hunting for Bambi is the brain child of Michael Burdick. Men pay anywhere from $5000 to $10,000 for the chance to come to the middle of the desert to shoot what they call "Bambi's" with a paint ball gun. Burdick says men have come from as far away as Germany. The men get a video tape of their hunt to take home and show their friends.

Burdick says safety is a concern, but the women are not allowed to wear protective gear -- only tennis shoes. Today while the Eyewitness News cameras were rolling, one woman chose to wear bikini bottoms but normally all they wear is their birthday suits.

Burdick says hunters are told not shoot the women above the chest, but admits not all hunters follow the rules. "The main goal is to be true as true to nature as possible. I don't go deer hunting and see a deer with a football helmet on so I don't want to see one on my girl either," said Burdick.

The paint balls that come out of the guns travel at about 200 miles per hour. Getting hit with one stings even with clothes on, and when they hit bare flesh, they are powerful enough to draw blood.

Evanthes shot one of the women and says, "I got the one with the biggest rack."

Gidget is the one who took the paint ball shot to the rear. She says, "It hurt. It really hurt. I didn't think it was going to be that bad. When asked if she cried she says,"yeah, a little bit."

So why do women agree to strip down and run around the desert dodging paint balls Nicole says it's good money. "I mean it's $2500 if you don't get hit. You try desperately not to and it's $1000 if you do, said Nicole.

Now both the men and women say this is all good, clean fun, but in Part 2 of this story, reporter LuAnne Sorrell spoke with a psychologist who says for some men playing out this sexual aggression may lead to other more violent acts against women.

Michael Burdick, the founder of HuntingForBambie.com, explains the game to three women early Monday morning: "You have to collect 4 flags throughout the course. Some are easy for you and some are not easy." It's a new adult game, that's only being played in Las Vegas. The woman begin stripping down to just their tennis shoes and start to dodge the paint balls that go buzzing by.

"We got a hit," George Evanthes says. He just shot one of the women in the butt. "It was sexy. Let's put it that way," says Evanthes. "It got me going." Although playing "Hunting for Bambi" got George Evanthis going, the fear of getting hit by a paint ball traveling at around 200 miles per hour is what gets the women going. That, and the fact that they get paid $2,500 if they escape unscathed, and $1000 if they do get hit.

George Evanthes says "as you can see this is not lethal, and it wasn't meant to hurt anybody. Just good clean fun."

Burdick says the majority of the men who pay the $5000 to $10,000 to play the game are the submissive, quite type: "For the individual who's used to saying I can't go out with the boys tonight ...my wife doesn't want me to, and yes dear, no dear, the wimp of America, it's a chance for him to come out and vent his aggression and really take charge and have some fun."

Marv Glovinsky is a clinical psychologist. He says Hunting for Bambi is every man's fantasy come true: "You might think of all men as little boys who have never grown up, so they entertain their adolescent fantasies and they go through life being adolescents on the hunt."

But Glovinsky says this so called game that mixes violence with sexuality can be dangerous for men who can not distinguish fantasy from reality, and acting out the violence in this game could lead to them acting out real violence: "If you're blurring reality and fantasy and you can't make the distinction and you're emotions over power your intellect or your higher mental function, your going to get into trouble, and if you have a control problem to boot, that's really going to cause problems." Problems like beating, raping or even hunting women with a real gun.

Hunter Evanthes disagrees: "This is just a game: get serious, get real," says Evanthes.

But some say it's a game which may have consequences that go far beyond the playing field.