“Naked sushi” (or “body sushi”) is the practice of serving sushi on the body of a naked woman or naked man. “Nyotaimori” is Japanese for the “female body platter” and “nantaimori” is Japanese for the “male body platter,” although the former far outnumbers the latter.
 
“Naked sushi” was popular in Germany in the late 1990s and in California in the early 2000s; a newspaper article about “body sushi” in New York City first appeared in the New York Post in 2003.
   
 
Wikipedia: Nyotaimori 
Nyotaimori (Japanese: 女体盛り, “female body presentation”), often referred to as “body sushi,” is the practice of eating sashimi or sushi from the body of a woman, typically naked. This sexual fetish is a subdivision of food play. As a result of being served on a human body, the temperature of the sushi or sashimi comes closer to body temperature, which some may see as a disadvantage or a benefit.
 
Relations with the West
Western media reporting of the phenomenon spreading to the U.S. and Germany severely misrepresents this to the point that it is perceived in Japan as a European meme.
 
Male platters
Even less common, but not unheard of, is the practice of using a male model for the same purpose. This would be called nantaimori (Japanese: 男体盛り).

Being bound
Another variation of the human platter is the “bondage sushi bar”, which can be found in some BDSM conventions and play parties in Britain and in Europe. In this variation, the individual acting as a living sushi plate is tied up to hinder movement or prevent it altogether. Nyotaimori could be considered a form of erotic humiliation.
 
Procedures for the human platter
Before becoming a living sushi platter, the person is trained to lie down for hours without moving. She or he must also be able to withstand the prolonged exposure to the cold food. Body hair, including pubic hair, would also be shaved, as a display of pubic hair may be seen as a sexual act.
 
Before service, the individual would take a bath using a special fragrance-free soap and then finish off with a splash of cold water to cool the body down somewhat for the sushi.
 
In some parts of the world, in order to comply with sanitation laws, there must be a layer of plastic or other material between the sushi and the body of the woman or man. Wrapping a naked person in cling film may also be regarded as a form of fetishism.
 
Legality
While legal in most jurisdictions, the risqué nature of nyotaimori can cause some friction in more conservative societies.
 
9 October 1998, Ottawa (Ontario, Canada) Citizen, “Naked sushi platter called ‘tasteless’”:
A German restaurant has been attacked as “tasteless” for serving sushi on naked models lying on top of tables.

Brigitte Vollmer-Schubert, ombudsman for women’s issues in the city of Hanover, said she was appalled that the restaurant used naked women as huge “platters” for the Japanese dish, dubbed “sushi ala Jungfrau (virgin).” But
the restaurant owner was quoted by Bild newspaper as saying the dish had been a huge hit and the evening-long meal, costing up to $ 250 U.S. per person, was booked out for weeks in advance.
   
New York (NY) Times
Naked Capitalists
By FRANK RICH
Published: May 20, 2001
(...)
Fishbein assures me that he has no ‘‘naked girls running through the office,’’ and alas, he is right—though a staff member does wander in with a photo to ask, ‘‘Was that the naked sushi party?’‘
   
12 August 2003, Los Angeles (CA) Times, pg. E1:
The naked plate piled high—This is body sushi
By Mary McNamara
 
20 August 2003, New York (NY) Post, “Naked Lunch: There’s a girl in my sushi” by Bridget Harrison, pg. 43:
THERE’S nothing genteel about this finger food.
 
Corporate bigwigs are forking over as much as $700 a head for dinner parties where guests are served sushi off a naked woman.
 
The secret gourmet trend has taken off in the past six months in L.A., and now New York is getting on the act.
 
“I’m being inundated with requests,” said Gary Arabia, who runs a high-end catering company called Global Cuisine, based in the Warner Bros. studio in West Hollywood, and created body sushi for his clients two years ago.
 
“I’m getting calls from people all over the country, but the big interest is in New York,” Arabia told The Post.
 
Arabia, who catered New York’s Grammy Awards after-party, threw an exclusive body sushi soiree for 14 guests in an Upper East Side apartment for a corporate client last spring. Now he’s working on a similar dinner for a private Manhattan businessman in October.
 
Body sushi, he stresses, isn’t the stuff of frat parties or stag nights.
 
“You don’t mess around with this. It’s got to be done right,” said Arabia, who personally works next to the naked woman, replenishing the sushi supply with a team of six chefs.
 
New York (NY) Daily News
Thursday, November 13th 2003, 7:19AM
Sexy sushi scrap
SEATTLE - Promoters say it’s art. Detractors say it’s a raw deal for women serving as platters for so-called naked sushi at a nightclub.
 
“It’s dehumanizing, the manner in which people are buying and selling sushi to be eaten off a woman’s body,” said Cherry Cayabyab, president of the Seattle National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum.
 
Bonzai nightclub owner Jun Hong says customers obey strict rules eating fish from plastic-wrapped models wearing thongs and flower petals.