MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 2002
SEX ON THE HILL
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN • 15B
Ski resort dumps ads
The Associated Press
DENVER — Colorado's ski industry has been pulling out the stops to lure young skiers and snowboarders now that aging baby boomers are battling bad knees.
But one resort's edgy ads were dumped after some complained that they went over the edge.
The Breckenridge Ski Resort used an offensive word for women to lure young customers in one print ad that begins: "The hill may dominate you." Another ad referred to courage by using a slang term for male anatomy.
Under pressure from women's groups, community leaders, residents and businesses, the resort has pulled the ad campaign.
Breckenridge Mayor Sam Mamula said he called the resort's chief operating officer, Roger McCarthy, on Friday to tell him guests were canceling reservations and residents and others were incensed.
"Some of the wording in the two ads in question crossed a line that should not have been crossed. As a result, the two ads have been called."
Roger McCarthy Chief operating officer at Breckenridge Ski Resort
Later in the day, McCurthy called him back to say the ad campaign was being pulled, though one segment was already in production and could not be stopped.
"Some of the wording in the two ads in question crossed a line that should not have been crossed. As a result, the two ads have been pulled," he said.
stopped. The marketing staff was trying to create "an edgy advertising campaign appealing to today's youth," McCarthy said.
"Sometimes,when companies make mistakes,the best thing to do is just admit the mistake and move on."
The ads were placed in such publications as Skateboarding, Snowboarding and Stance magazines.
Ski and snowboarding-related ad campaigns have a history of being edgy.
being edgy.
Absolut vodka pulled a campaign after Vail Resorts, which owns Breckenridge, threatened to sue.
It showed a bottle in the shape of a cast suggesting a ski accident with the words "Absolut Vail" scrawled on it.
Budget Car Rental stopped a campaign that showed a skier tangled in a tree.
By Michelle Miller
The State Hornet via U-Wire
California State University-Sacramento
Cal State-Sacramento center offers education, advocacy
Patricia Grady, the Women's Resource Center coordinator, said she would like to focus more on gay and lesbian awareness this year.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — An expanded focus and a new location characterize a new year of providing information, education and advocacy at California State University-Sacramento.
Some upcoming events planned are self-defense seminars, a return of the successful "Vagina Monologues" and several events coinciding with National Gay and Lesbian History Month.
this year. "Our [gay] community on campus is not recognized as much as I'd like it to be," she
said.
"The prejudices gays face are still too openly accepted by our culture," Grady said. "We haven't moved very far in breaking down those stereotypes and barriers."
The Women's Resource Center offers several services.
Students can search for books and pamphlets on women's issues, health and sexuality using a database, as they would in the main library.
"It's a good place for students with assignments in these areas to start research," Grady said.
The center also has services for violence prevention and sexual assault victims.
Representatives from the center give presentations to groups in the residence halls, athletics department and fraternities and sororities about reducing the risk
of sexual assault.
"The vast majority of sexual assaults are not perpetrated by sexual predators," Grady said.
According to Grady, acquaintance rape is far more common and poses a greater danger to students, especially given the more prolific use of date-rape drugs.
"Statistically, this is the population most at risk," Grady said. Last semester, the center moved from the University Union to the Multicultural Center on the first floor of the library.
"It's a little tricky figuring out relations," said student assistant Xochitl Lopez.
While the Women's Resource and Multicultural centers are still two separate entities, sharing space and resources will provide more opportunities for collaboration, Lopez said.
In Iran, more women who leave their homes turn to prostitution to survive, experts say
The Associated Press
MASHHAD, Iran — Saeed Hanaei went to the gallows for murdering prostitutes, but some Iranians are holding him up as a hero who acted against a growing social scourge.
"Hanaei, a man who preferred a dignified death to a humiliating life. 'If I removed corruption, it was for the good of the people,'" his gravestone read.
Hanael, who was hanged in April for strangling 16 prostitutes, said he wanted corrupt women out of Mashhad, site of an important Shiite Muslim shrine 550 miles northeast of Tehran.
Official statistics suggest prostitution is increasing in the Islamic Republic.
"Based on our findings, the number of prostitutes is unfortunately on the rise. There are now an estimated 30,000 working prostitutes in Iran," said Hadi Motamedi, a top official at the State Welfare Organization.
Motamedi could not say how much prostitution had increased, because it was considered so minimal earlier that no statistics were gathered.
But women waiting for customers in the streets are visibly more numerous than in past years.
The prostitutes are believed to work independently, though police have sporadically reported organized prostitution rings run mostly by women in private houses.
The monthly magazine Zanan (Women) recently quoted two 15-year-olds as saying they fell into prostitution after they fled homes where they were beaten.
One of them said her conservative father tortured her after seeing her chatting with a boy.
Iran's strict Islamic rules allow little socializing between the sexes, and young Iranians have been jailed and flogged for dancing together at birthday parties.
"Parents who are suspicious of their children, don't give their children any choice or freedom, and always impose their thinking on them, force such children to flee homes," said psychologist Hamzeh Ganji.
Ganji said young girls who leave home often must become prostitutes to survive.
More than half of Iran's 70 million people are below age 25.
The unemployment rate is offi
"Parents who are suspicious of their children, don't give their children any choice or freedom,and always impose their thinking on them, force such children to flee homes."
Hamzeh Ganji psychologist
cially 15 percent, but private experts say it really is about 30 percent.
The rise in prostitution has led to suggestions that brothels be legalized and monitored.
Some Iranians say brothels could be run according to Islamic rules, presumably under a Shiite Muslim tradition in which men and women are allowed to have "temporary marriages" — sometimes less than 24 hours.
Most clerics, though, scoff at the idea that sex outside marriage can ever be condoned by Islam. After the 1979 revolution, clerics destroyed brothels as un-Islamic
and corrupting.
Ganji argues that allowing brothels would enable the authorities to control AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, "and the rest of the society will live in peace without women afraid of being molested or wrongly approached by customers in streets."
Psychiatrist Mahdis Kamkar said Iranians should recognize the rise in prostitution as a symptom of broader social problems such as "troubled families, divorce, identity crises and social contradictions."
contractions.
Some men seek prostitutes out of "personal failure and disappointment," she said. Others "are men who have no affectionate sex relationship with their wives. They look at their wife as a sex object." This leads to trouble and such men go to prostitutes, who demand money and nothing else."
Kamkar said some young men may seek out prostitutes because they otherwise would have no relations with women before marriage.
"In school, boys and girls are kept separate and are told about chastity. Outside school, they see a sharply different world," she
said.
Hanaei, the serial killer, is defended by his family and others.
"I'm not sad that my dad is dead.I'm sad because he failed to achieve his goal,"his 16-year old son, Ali, told The Associated Press.
Not everyone is happy with that response, including the government.
Disturbed that Hanaei's grave was drawing admirers, officials ordered his family to remove the headstone with the inscription saying he worked "for the good of the people." It was replaced with: "The blessed soul Saeed Hanaei."
Still, the grave in the sprawling Behesht-e-Reza cemetery, six miles south of Mashhad, continues to draw visitors.
"He did a good job. Prostitutes don't deserve to be alive," said Qasem Hosseini, who came to pray over the grave.
But others at the cemetery disagreed.
"Hanaei was a criminal. His body should have not been even allowed to be buried here," said Zohreh Ashtiani. As she spoke, a dozen men and women standing nearby nodded in agreement.
Berkeley targets massage parlors
By Wendy Lee
The Daily Californian
The University of California-Berkeley
BERKELEY, Calif. - Prostitution at local massage parlor may be eliminated by a provision under consideration by the Berkeley City Council.
The new provision, on Tuesday's council meeting agenda, requires massage workers to complete at least 500 hours of "bona fide message therapy school" and undergo a criminal background check. If a massage parlor's employees do not meet these requirements, the parlor's permit could be revoked, according to the provision.
Berkeley massage parlors came under fire by city officials this year when the Golden Gypsy Massage Parlor was charged with illegally offering patrons sexual favors instead of massages. The parlor was shut down last July.
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