The one piece of swimwear that is dividing Aussies

It is becoming an increasingly common sight on our beaches, but the truth about the G-string bikini might shock you.

We have to talk, Australia.

You, me and you and you. You too.

A deep schism has been revealed, a deep fault line that is running through our society, that is dividing men and women, that threatens to drive a wedge between the sexes.

G-string bikinis. Yeah or nah?

Earlier this year, news.com.au launched The Great Aussie Debate, a wide-ranging, 50 question survey that has uncovered what Australians really think about all the hot topics of 2025.

Over two weeks, more than 54,000 Australians took part in the survey, revealing their thoughts on everything from the cost of living and homeownership, to electric vehicles and going shoeless in supermarkets.

Well, now the results are in and one finding has laid bare the split in our community on the burning, keeps-people-up-at-night issue of, is it okay to see two wobbling bottom cheeks making their way towards the surf on a perfect, sunny Saturday morning?

We asked Australia, “should G-string bikinis be banned on beaches?” and at a time of what can feel like increasing division, of cultural, social and political disharmony, overall, the response can be summed up with a blasé shrug.

The results from the Great Aussie Debate are in. Picture: News.com.au

The results show that more than two thirds of respondents, or 69.57 percent if you want to get a bit swotty, think “people should be able to wear whatever they want” and only 30.43 percent think G-string bikinis are “inappropriate to wear in public”.

However, drill down further and something really surprising comes clear.

While nearly four in five men think G-strings are fine at the beach, or 78.29 percent (and 73.86 percent of non-binary respondents) - only just over half of women, 54.07 percent, do too.

It is becoming a common sight on Aussie beaches. Picture: Dean Tirkot at Bondi /news.com.au

Or to put it another way, women are nearly evenly split on the issue with just over half ticking ‘appropriate’ and half (45.93 percent) in the ‘inappropriate’ camp.

Women are clearly far less Advance Australia laissez faire.

The man part is, to widely generalise, easy to understand. They are not averse at all to seeing chicks parade about on the sand or splash about the shallow end with their bottoms bared.

Ooh err.

But how do we understand women’s squeamishness? Are we (speaking as a cis gender woman) being prudish or pragmatic or still struggling with that whole body positivity whatsit?

Most obviously, maybe we are just not that willing to serve ourselves up on a lycra-ed platter to be sexually objectified when all we are trying to do is to enjoy a salty dip.

Move past that though and we enter complicated territory.

Maybe women police our and other women’s bodies more harshly than men.

Influencers love to flaunt the swimwear. Picture: Instagram / @britmanuela

Nearly a century of media-propelled, pop culture-powered messages about beauty and body standards are not going to be magically undone by a few years of Dove ads.

Our Debate results clearly show that the older demographics (of both men and women here) are far less likely to see G-string bikinis as okay.

That is, that 55/45 split for women might say more about older women’s eons of deeply socially and culturally internalised standards of beauty and body.

Anyone over the age of about 40-years-old today came of age saturated in the notion of the ‘bikini body’.

We hoovered up every Cosmo and its ilk which promised us the secret to get and keep that most precious of commodities, a shape deemed worthy of flaunting on the beach.

Today we might be completely cognisant of the chicanery and smoke and mirrors of the advertising industrial complex but deprogramming ourselves can and will take years, like waiting out the half-life of radioactive waste.

(We really are talking about the body politic and here you were thinking you were just getting a story about nice bottoms. Huh!)

More women were against the trend than men. Picture: Instagram / @britmanuela

Onto the next possible reason. The context for the G-string bikini.

Beaches and pools are spaces that mean there will generally be children around too. Should tots carting big smiles, buckets, spades and floaties have to see adult bottoms?

Or does our even being concerned about this say more about our own shame because kids do not place such meaning on bodies?

How do we even read bottoms? Simply part of women's’ anatomy like a foot or a finger or as something inherently sexualised?

I have a bad feeling I am going to use up news.com.au’s question mark budget for the second quarter in this story alone.

Also, realistically, we are not a country that has traditionally bared all, budgie-smugglers aside, when we swim.

Unlike Europe, Australian beaches have never fully welcomed toplessness, the nation’s boobs kept by and large wrapped or covered to some degree.

On the subject of female nipples out and proud, the general approach has largely been, no merci.

All I can tell you confidently is that firm answers, like bottoms, are few and far between.

Here’s my personal view. You do you. Wear what you want.

If nothing else, there is enough crap going on in the world right now for anyone to spend too much time worrying about what other people are wearing when they are minding their own business and getting SPF in hard to reach places.

We are meant to be a country defined by tolerance, by acceptance and by welcoming all those who want to be a part of this glorious endeavour of nationhood and democracy.

No ifs, and… definitely all the butts.

Daniela Elser is a writer, editor and commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.

Originally published as The one piece of swimwear that is dividing Aussies