why are Australians so conservative when it comes to attending nude beaches

It's secluded, sunny, and (perhaps most appealingly) on the other side of the planet.

 

Cable Beach isn't secluded, in the sense of the meaning that there is somewhere to play. It does have large open swales and low dunes, but generally you've got the (unwelcome) company of hundreds of 4WDs who churn up the beach and park at the high tide mark and stay there all day until the tide goes out. Not many of them are nudists — mostly fisherman or retired folk sitting and gazing out to sea all day; the true-blue nudists are further up the beach. But being 22km long, it's not hard to find your own place. And there is another, even better place to strip: 80 Mile Beach, on Australia's hot western coastline (the Pilbara, and inland of here is where Australia's unstoppable mining boom is taking place) is 166km of wide open, sun-drenched beach.. I rode 48km of that (return) naked on my mountain bike, but the heat was very testing. Excellent beach for collecting myriad types of seashell too!

 

Are Australian women raised to be prudes about their bodies?
If not, then blame it on the way they are treated when they visit the beach.

Here in the States, on textile beaches women outnumber the men slightly and kids are everywhere.
If women like going to the beach as much or more than men, then what's different about visiting a nude beach?

If your government would provide the same level of police protection to nude beaches as they do textile beaches, then women and families with children might be more likely to return to the nude beach.

Of course it wouldn't hurt if Anglo culture taught men not to gawk and make rude remarks and indecent proposals.

And maybe if our decision to be nude on a beach holiday would not create such a scandal, the beach voyeur cameras could not keep us in fear of our image being posted on the Internet.

You can go out of your mind trying to figure out if laws or custom need to be changed first before nudity on the beach is both legal and widely accepted. Maybe change both! And improve enforcement of existing laws protecting beachgoers from pervs, voyeurs, etc.

 

There used to be a couple of nice family nude beaches in Sydney, then they became a haven for gay perverted morons having sex where everybody could see them, I guess they had exhibitionist issues, those beaches are more or less deserted these days, and why would you want to take your family to beach overcrowded with desperate straight men. And then there is the fear in all the women, which is a problem as well, We will just put the whole thing down to psychological issues in the whole society.

 

I think you answered your own question

 

A serious guess from my experience. UV Ray's and skin cancer.

 

I kind of feel like here in Perth it's so small that you are always afraid of running into someone who you know. Also there are a lot of perverts at our beaches sadly which makes it seem like a much less family friendly place