A recent podcast clip has gone viral after former ‘The Only Way is Essex’ stars Jess and Carol Wright slammed women who wear thong bikinis at the beach.
In an episode of their podcast ‘Wright At Home’ , which they make with Carol’s youngest daughter Natalya, the reality TV stars stated that they ‘don’t understand how it’s acceptable to walk around a beach in a thong — leave something to the imagination’.
Carol went on to add: ‘This is not sexy for men to look at’, with Jess fuelling the fire by sharing that her partner Will ‘cannot stand it’.
The clip, which has since been deleted, immediately caught the attention of women across TikTok, becoming a viral sound overnight and prompting some pretty heated debates in users’ comment sections.
From unpacking the deep grip the male gaze still has on some women to wondering just how Jess’ partner Will might cope once Summer comes around, it’s safe to say that the girlies were ready to beat this dead horse into next week.
The context of the conversation is currently unknown, given the fact that the short clip has been deleted and the full episode is not yet available online.
However, from the snippet available, it’s quite easy to understand where the family is going with this one.
And in classic TikTok-fashion, it wasn’t just going to get swept under the carpet.
Have you ever worn a thong bikini on the beach?
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Yes
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No
Dozens of users decided to respond to the Wright family’s hot take by sharing videos of themselves living their best life while shaking their ass on the beach — their butt cheeks unburdened by material.
Now that’s the kind of feminism I can get behind.
Many of these creators chose to caption their posts with different variations of the following: ‘This one’s for Jess, Will, and especially her mum Carol’.
You know, just in case it wasn’t obvious enough who the video was aimed at.
A number of commentors couldn’t believe that this was a topic of conversation in the first place.
One user wrote: ‘This audio!! I can’t believe it! They are at the beach, what does it matter what bottoms women have on? Good grief!’ while another added: ‘People can wear what they want, if you get uncomfortable literally don’t look…’
Also, as one girl expertly pointed out: ‘God forbid a girl wants her cheeks to be tanned’.
But there were a few who agreed with the clip.
‘I cant stand it, especially if it’s a family beach – a family beach is where I draw the line,’ one person said. ‘We’ve normalised way too much.’
Dr Carolina Are, a digital criminologist at LSE, pole dance performer, and owner of her fair share of itty bitty bikinis, shared her thoughts on this topic with Metro.
According to the academic, the short clip has popped off because of the wider rollback of feminism we’re seeing online in 2026.
‘We’ve seen viral content such as the Diary of a CEO clip about not enough women having children generate countless reactions, positive and negative,’ she says.
‘This says a lot about how platforms shape overall discourse, especially at a risky time for women’s rights and freedoms, given the overturning of Roe v Wade in the US, and the mainstreamisation of manosphere content about body counts, ‘high value women’ and trad wives.
‘This content seems to be within that trend, and far from being just about fashion or personal taste, it risks pitting women against each other or reinforcing norms about what kind of woman is attractive or even just… good and worthy of safety, love etc.’
For Dr Carolina, anyone saying what outfit a woman should wear is ‘policing women’s bodies’ – the gender of the person making the comments doesn’t matter.
‘But in this case in particular, the hosts’ assumption that ‘men don’t find it sexy’ is first of all an unfounded generalisation, and second of all it assumes that women wear thongs to please men or for to gain men’s attention,’ she says.
‘Personally, I wear thongs because I like them and I like having tan lines. Whether a man sees that or not doesn’t influence my choice. And after all, how about Queer women who wear it among each other?
‘Assuming a man always has to be in the back of women’s minds when dressing up is heteronormative, inaccurate and disempowering.’
Metro also spoke with Dr Helena Lewis-Smith, Associate Professor of Psychology at UWE, who builds on this argument, stating: ‘Phrases like “leave something to the imagination” frame women’s bodies through a sexual lens and suggest there’s a “right” way for women to present themselves.
‘When opinions about what women should wear are shared publicly, it reinforces the idea that women’s bodies are open to judgement.’
Whether or not the Wright women had any idea how impactful their conversation would be is yet to be seen.
But, as Dr Carolina emphasises, choice is the most empowering thing women can grant one another.
She continues: ‘I wore thongs on the beach before I was a pole dancer, but as a sexual assault and Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) survivor, I have found pole dancing (an art and a sport created by strippers) revolutionary in normalising bodies.
‘I think if we were all more exposed to bodies and nudity we’d have way less issues as a society: we would talk about health, consent, and sex more openly, instead of judging people on the basis of clothing.’