Naked sushi in Seattle
The Seattle Times covers a local controversy over naked sushi, a restaurant trend "which has its roots in Japan but has arrived more recently in Los Angeles and New York."
Saturday night at Bonzai in Pioneer Square, a nearly naked woman is laid out on a table. A chef slices sushi behind her, to be arrayed on her torso, bare except for a sheath of plastic wrap and some decorative flower petals.
Hours earlier, across town on the campus of the University of Washington, eight activists, mostly Asian-American women, express outrage at what they call the prostitution of sushi and the exploitation of women. They plot their strategy.
While the promoter and the sushi model say this melding of prandial and sexual is performance art, Bonzai's patrons — men and women of various ethnicities — say it merely adds to the restaurant's sensual vibe.
Opponents say treating women like a serving platter reinforces attitudes that make domestic and sexual violence so prevalent.
The night's model, an Asian-American woman who won't say how much she is paid and asked not to be named, said the experience is relaxing, sensual and meditative.
"It's ridiculous to comment on it without experiencing it. It's hearsay," she said of her critics, who contend the model has "internalized her oppression."
(Link snagged from Boing Boing.)
