Throngs of thong-wearing protesters bared their bums on Australia’s Gold Coast as they showed their opposition to calls for a ban on G-string bikini bottoms.

The demonstration, named “Free The Peach”, began at Kurrawa Beach at 6am local time on Friday (8pm Thursday UK time), according to reports in Australia.

Dozens of locals wore their skimpiest swimwear as they fought for their right to wear what they want on the beach.

They were rallying against remarks made by Ian Grace, a former Gold Coast Volunteer Of The Year award winner, who said women and girls who wore G-strings were “cheapening themselves”.

Mr Grace first made his concerns known in a letter to Tom Tate, mayor of Gold Coast, earlier this month saying he had become distracted by women wearing triangle bikinis on the beach, Australian news site news.com.au reports.

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He wrote: “One young lady in particular was walking on the footpath on the main road and had the tiniest triangle in front and was as close to naked as anyone could be.

“You could see she was looking almost defiantly at people as they approached, almost daring them to say something. There’s something very wrong here.”

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“While any man would enjoy ‘the view’, I believe women are very much demeaning and cheapening themselves, portraying themselves as sex objects, then decrying it when men see them that way.”

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Rebecca Pask, owner of the Barr Body Swim swimwear company, told the Australian breakfast show Today: “I think the conversation is so much wider.

“Children and our young girls in society, we do need to teach them what’s appropriate and what’s not but that starts in the home.

“A bikini blanket ban was never going to be the solution. Never. Not on the Gold Coast.”

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