A council in Greater Sydney has announced it is banning g-string bikinis at its public pools without providing further details about how the rule will be policed, sparking debate about gender standards.
Earlier this month, Blue Mountains Leisure Centres (BMLC) posted on Facebook that it had noticed some “confusion” about “appropriate swimwear” when visiting one of their pools.
BMLC’s five pools include Glenbrook Swim Centre, Blackheath Pool and the Lawson Swim Centre.
“Much of [the confusion] focused on a poster showing the kind of swimwear that is and isn’t appropriate. It’s important to remember that these images are indicative only,” the post said.
“In particular, the image of ‘revealing swimwear/thongs’ has raised some eyebrows. This image refers to thongs and g-strings – not bikini tops and bottoms.
“Thongs and g-string swimwear is not acceptable for males or females when visiting our leisure centres.
“Bikinis are acceptable and considered recognised swimwear.”
The clarification caused debate in the comments, ranging from “if you don’t like it, don’t look” to “it’s about the rules … don’t like them? Then swim and bare your bum elsewhere”.
Others expressed their anger at the ruling.
“So long as [practicality] and safety are considered it shouldn’t be any one else’s business what I’m comfortable swimming in,” one person commented.
The post has since been deleted.
Australia had a long history of policing women’s bodies, cultural expert Lauren Rosewarne said, and summertime conversations about appropriate swimwear provide “a legitimacy to looking at women in small bathing suits”.
Rosewarne, an associate professor in the University of Melbourne’s school of social and political sciences, added that women’s bodies and attire had been a source for public debate in a way that didn’t happen with men.
“The undercurrent of these stories is that somehow women are doing something with their bodies to distract men in ways that make men feel as though they’re being tempted, and it’s up to women to sort themselves out … Somehow, the responsibility is on women not to stir desires in men, because then men might act badly and be punished, so we have to put the responsibility of morality on to women’s shoulders.”
She argued it was not women’s responsibility if parents had to have age-appropriate conversations with their children because of how they are dressed.
“Not everything is sexual just because you see it as such,” she said.
Most pools have appropriate swimwear rules, many of them stipulating full briefs for bottoms.
In 2023, Marion Outdoor Pool in Adelaide was criticised for saying people should wear “modest swimwear” or a “standard bikini”.
Earlier this year, a man called on the Gold Coast Council to ban skimpy swimwear because it left him feeling “uncomfortable”. “While any man would enjoy ‘the view’, I believe women are very much demeaning and cheapening themselves,” he reportedly wrote. He said he “innocently … admired a shapely bare bum” then felt “uncomfortable”.
In competitive swimming, Swimming Australia’s guidelines stipulate swimwear must be modest, and their “acceptable” swimsuit list does not include g-strings.
The council declined to comment.
