You’ve maybe seen them before, those naked women lying prostrate and covered with sushi, getting ogled by middle-aged men with shaky chopsticks, scoffed at by snarling wives in party dresses, and giggled at by perennial adolescents who can’t resist a good fish joke. I’ve never quite known what to make of them myself, though I’ve certainly plucked a crab roll from the occasional nipple during the course of my culinary adventures.

Well, Vanity Fair has given a pen to a virgin sushi model, and it’s worth a read if you don’t mind losing your appetite for the rest of the day…

Utterly exposed before a group of strangers, I do my best to fight off the impending toe cramp and a fierce desire to wince. This is all very new to me. You see, it’s my first time as a naked body sushi model.

In fairness, you might wonder how one becomes a naked body sushi model. More specifically, you might wonder how one with zero experience of undressing in public becomes a naked body sushi model.

It’s a goodie.

Here’s what New York Times food critic Frank Bruni had to say about the phenomenon in his write up of Cheetah’s in Manhattan (via Gawker):

The young lady’s nipples shone under the purple-gel spotlights but my companions and I were more interested in the uni than the yoohoo yingyang haha. Cheetah’s is a lascivious playground for the brave sushi lover where delicate sushi and sashimi, prepared by Blue Ribbon master Shinsaku Yamakage, are placed over the glistening pallid flesh of similarly delicate women. One of the supine geisha-cum-tables enquired if I or my buddies would like anything stronger than the Arnold Palmers we had in our hands, making, “You wanna sip something harder?” sound almost X-rated. We demurred. After all, we had an African dance class later and this was but a Sunday tea party.

Perhaps Vancouver is too conservative, or is it too liberal?