LONDON — Nyotaimori — aka "female body arrangement" aka "naked sushi," in which the food is eaten from the nude body of a beautiful woman — is as much legend as fact in Japan (see accompanying article). But that hasn't stopped the Western imagination from seizing upon it as supposed shorthand for everything Japanese: an exquisite erotic aesthetic, a minimalist cuisine with a side-order of kinky.

On-screen, you can't escape nyotaimori. You may remember a prominent scene in the 1993 film "Rising Sun," starring Sean Connery. More recently, it has featured in the film of "Sex and the City" and the mockumentary "Bruno" when celebrity Paula Abdul fled from an interview rather than eat sushi off a naked Mexican man. On the small screen, it's starred in a episode of "CSI: New York" and, memorably, in Britain's popular "Come Dine With Me" reality series, when one dinner-party host grossed out his guests by asking them to eat sushi off a hairy young man of dubious hygiene. One diner was filmed gagging shortly after.

Off-screen, too, nyotaimori has become fashionable, with celebrity enthusiasts including George Clooney and Brad Pitt. And yet still no one knows exactly what body sushi is — or should be. In America, options for partaking of nyotaimori range from $2,000 custom private dining, to events in strip clubs and other sex-trade venues, to cheap and cheerful specials at sushi shops featuring models wrapped in cling-film.