The Amrita, Japan’s first and only nude restaurant, is slated to open on July 29th for a three-day stint in Tokyo. Although patrons will be required to wear paper underwear for hygienic reasons, the restaurant promises an opportunity to enjoy organic, all-natural food in your truly au naturel state.
That is, if your au naturel state is young and slim.
This controversial new restaurant takes its name from the Sanskrit word for immortality and has strict rules regarding who can enjoy this naked dining experience. To say these rules are discriminatory and downright rude doesn’t begin to cover it.
Patrons who are 30 lbs. above what their body weight “should be” for their height are asked not to make a reservation. Likewise, patrons who are over the age of 60 are asked not to make a reservation. Oh, and no one with tattoos will be allowed in, either.
If it’s questionable that you’re young or thin enough to enter, your ID will be checked to verify your age and patrons will be asked to weigh themselves to prove they are the “appropriate” body weight. Yes, in front of everyone you’re with. In public.
Did anyone order sashimi with a side of body shaming?
Asian culture in general is not one to tolerate obesity kindly. The pressure to be skinny in Japan and in other Asian countries is apparent in trends like a few infamous Instagram body shaming challenges. For example, the “iPhone Knee Challenge,” where girls see if their legs are slim enough that their knees can be completely hidden by an iPhone 6.
The trend is clear, and it is unnerving.
What’s more unnerving is the preemptive success of The Amrita. Well over a month in advance, the restaurant has already sold out tickets for two of its three available nights. Did we mention that tickets range from 12,000 to 80,000 yen, which in US Dollars is $112 – $563?
Clearly, plenty of people are interested in the revealing experience The Amrita has to offer, including the promise of a handsome wait staff and male dancers. Because it wouldn’t be body shaming if there wasn’t some good, old-fashion objectification, too.
The restaurant's website promises, “men with the world’s most beautiful bodies” as waiters, and a sexy dance show, featuring white, male models dancing in g-strings. You probably think I’m making this up at this point.
Sadly, it’s true. Not only is this supposed “utopia” of youth and beauty (I think the word they’re searching for is "dystopia") objectifying these men, asking you to see them as nothing more than sex objects, but they’ve somehow set the beauty standard even higher by adding these men to the mix.
By boasting waiters with “the most beautiful bodies in the world” and dangling these handsome, practically naked models in front of you, they’re telling patrons what they should look like. They’re letting them know what the “ultimate standard” of beauty is.
Here’s a shocker – to them, the “ultimate standard” is white, male, good-looking, and lean.
As if it wasn’t enough that The Amrita has to degrade every patron to see if they’re young or thin enough by their standards to enter the restaurant, they then welcome them in with ridiculous, unrealistic beauty standards. That’s got to make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
So the question is: why?
We millennials are called the “experience generation” after all, and God knows FOMO is one of the strongest forces known to mankind. Maybe it’s all just for the novelty of it.
Why would people, maybe even people who are body conscious, choose to spend their money at a restaurant like this?
While I can’t gaze into the minds of these patrons and tell you why, I can theorize.
Maybe it’s all about the gimmick. Maybe the hype of this controversial restaurant is luring in crowds who can then go back to their friends and say, “Oh, yeah, I went to that terrible, naked restaurant. It was awesome.”
We millennials are called the “experience generation” after all, and God knows FOMO is one of the strongest forces known to mankind. Maybe it’s all just for the novelty of it.
Or maybe it’s more than that. Are these prospective patrons trying to prove that they’re on the right side of the body-shaming movement? Are the young men and women of Japan clamoring to get into The Amrita to prove to their peers that they can be there? Or, worse, are they trying to assure themselves that they belong in this “Eden” of young, thin people?
Although we may never know what’s driving the masses to this disgraceful restaurant, it will be interesting to see how successful The Amrita’s three-day stint will be, and to see if the restaurant garners potential backlash or praise from its discriminatory practices.
