Biggus Titus of Oxford University

[Forecastsayssnowbutthereisnosnow]

Sadly, not a Monty Python sketch.

Matt Rattley, a large bearded bloke who wears giant fake breasts, appears to be happily working at Oxford Uni.

I was really hoping this wasn't true but there is even a youtube video with him talking while wearing the giant breasts and red lipstick, applied to a degree any circus clown would be accused of overdoing it. The video includes a slide stating he works as a lecturer and tutor in the Biochemistry Dept at Oxford. He's also on LinkedIn.

I mean, how obvious can it be that this is a sexual fetish which he is involving unconsenting students and staff in???

Dr P on X has been (correctly) very robust on this case:

""This is Matt Rattley saying, "I can do whatever I please and nobody can stop me".

This is highly antisocial, abnormal, boundary-violating, paraphilic behaviour.

And we should not be afraid to say so."

The fact that it's a staff member creates an impression that it's all approved by the university, so it'd be foolish to question it.

This is the problem. The college is creating the impression this is "normal" and sadly too many young people, not because they have been transed, but just because they are young and maybe not confident wont feel able to speak out.

What a gift Queerness has been

Not just the Queer agenda but sadly that so many universities and so called intellectual adopted it.

I doubt this man is a queer advocate, but has seen how it can be used to give him permission to impose his individual exhibitionism on those around him.

Edited to add in case this isn't clear, the victims are the young people going to university and having this imposed on them. Or them feeling to "fit in" they too should applaud it.

@Lady1576

Just to check that if a woman decided to wear a massive fake beard to a lecture and/or a massive erect strap on under her clothes so that it was visible to students whilst lecturing that you’d also just decide that she is a bit weird and would say nothing?

In fact, in past centuries, one can find far more flexible notions of gender identity and sexual identity than are evident on an MN thread like this one.

Oh, that old chestnut- straight out of the playbook, number 25, I think?

Yes, well I'm convinced now that you are neither an academic at Oxford, nor are you a feminist (nor do you have marking to do). You are an apologist for a woman-parodying man.

Well zero evidence apart from the enormous fake breasts…….

Well spotted. Straight out of the TRA playbook.

'I'm just too intellectual to be bothered by the paraphillics in fetish wear"

Oh will you stop now.

They can't be the same, can they? I don't know about anyone else, but I can't name-change within a single thread.

No you're right, you cannot name-change on the same thread, we have two of them joining us. I feel so blessed.

It's Mumsnet, not GCHQ. A mobile and a laptop and a wee bit of savvy.
Or just share a room in your Ma's attic with yer pal.😁

Besides. There's only me posting here, I've got a lot of socks. As we are all so often told.

.

This. This this this.

I'd never have felt able to speak up about this - whereas I think I would have done if I'd been subjected to the kind of thing Goldhill was doing.

But note the "think". Even for actual abuse. Back then, it would have been somewhat out of character and taken immense courage.

And then, @oxfordfeminist, think again about why posters here are worried about his students, and the ethical arguments for being able to discuss this issue freely as well as those against (which, yes, do exist too - private individual and all that).

The simplicity and tropey single-mindedness of Oxford's posts in this context would leave me unconvinced they're any kind of academic... but for the level of capture we've seen in our unis.

The common theme is a lowering of standards all round, isn't it, really. 😔

The fact that the first thing Oxford did was come on here and defend this man speaks volumes to the level of the chilling effect that will be going on.

Oxford says of course they would support any student who came to them with a complaint about this man, but as a student if I even remotely suspected that a lecturer I wanted to confide in was going on online fora and supporting this man’s behaviour, I would be running as far away from Oxford (the person) as I possibly could. How could I possibly trust that they would not dismiss me as they have dismissed everyone here?

And there is the problem. Maybe they wouldn’t dismiss me. But if every action I have seen from them up to that point (or every lack of action) has been in support of someone who is blatantly breaking the personal boundaries of his female students, I would have no evidence that they wouldn’t dismiss me.

Are you suggesting that it can only be harassment if it violates a university or college regulation?

"if it walks like a duck," etc

I almost wanted to apologise to them - in their shoes I'd feel a bit hard done by, being dragged into the department for this!

I worry that I'm burning my students' time, and in particular their brainpower

it's at best indulgent of me

I might need to see what leeway I have to try some other things out!

I found these comments of his interesting. Either he has no self-awareness or it's the written equivalent of duper's delight.

Ironically you sound like somebody apologising for Trump.

@oxfordfeminist Today 18:23
For the record, if any student comes to me and tells me that a tutor is making them feel uncomfortable, I will absolutely pursue the matter. As will my colleagues. I'm not afraid to whistleblow; I've done it before. There are still many instances of abuse of power in academia, and it needs to stop.

How, exactly? How exactly would you pursue it? You don't think he's doing anything wrong!

Would you go up to him and say I realise that those enormous comedy breasts are just part of your self expression, identity, whatever, but some student is upset by them?

How do you square that away? You don't think there's anything wrong with the comedy breasts, but you have to tell him to stop wearing them because...what?

Where is your explanation of why he needs to stop wearing them if you, and he, think there's nothing wrong with them?

And if he says, nah luv, this is who I am, jog on?

It's a ridiculous assertion to make that you would stop a man doing something you think is absolutely fine, because someone is uncomfortable by it, and you have no idea why.

How can you possibly have lived this long and this is okay!

I sincerely hope you are in zero position of authority over any young person.

The appeals to tradition are hilarious. C. S. Lewis would be spinning in his grave if he could see what his beloved institution is now supporting.

"Men have been parading around wearing cartoonishly large, barely covered prosthetic breasts at Oxford for a thousand years, you bigot! Sorry if that storied tradition offends your Trumpian sensibilities. Actually, you're probably not intelligent enough to understand - it's an Oxford thing!"

(By the way, I have an advanced degree from Oxford. The kind of attitude above is unironically how many of these "scholars" view any input from the outside world.)

Which also brings us back to the lecturer upthread (and now also discussed in a dedicated thread, I think?) who challenged a noticeboard promoting this ideology in his college, and the associated impact of such displays and the culture they generate on students' ability to speak freely.

I mean, I've experienced it myself at work, FFS. It is chilling (in every sense).

And I think that very silencing in the immediacy of the college context, in the grounds, down the corridor... is precisely what goes a long way towards legitimising the kind of discussion posters are having here.

(Which is another way in which trans ideology and its proponents visiting here can be ironically self-defeating).

The oxfordfeminist studied under Simon Goldhill, so that would be Classics, Greek Literature, Humanities.

And Matt Rattley's field is biochemistry.

I feel that these two people might not have all that much in common to talk about in the canteen.... Apart from how brave and beautiful one of them is, obviously.

Jeeze. That’s horrible. I could not possibly take that seriously. Yuk!

On the other hand Charles Dodgson would have had no problem.

“When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less."
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master — that’s all."

Charles Dodgson didn't exactly see queer theory coming but he'd have recognised it.

I have seen some of the safeguarding training that they give to university staff. I am confident that situations such as this one is not likely covered.

If staff and students have been also told at the same time via education and media that this man is simply being himself and not acting out a fetish, the likelihood of them recognising this as a safeguarding issue, which it is in my opinion, is very very slim. It is only if it is correctly recognised as a paraphilia being acted upon in public that it is an immediate safeguarding red flag.

Which, of course, is why men are getting away with indulging in their paraphilias in public. Because people cannot recognise the paraphilia because they are too quick to defend this as a man simply being his best self. His true self.

Society has been groomed to consider this type of behaviour as normal and to be even be celebrated.

It will take a very brave student to voice a complaint to any staff member. The students will fear negative reactions. This is what they have been taught to fear.

A woman who cannot recognise the inappropriate sexual behaviour of a paraphilia such as this has very low boundaries. Too low. The also likely don’t have a strong understanding of the wider safeguarding principles either, including consent around paraphilic behaviour and being an involuntary witness.

DGR
The appeals to tradition are hilarious. C. S. Lewis would be spinning in his grave if he could see what his beloved institution is now supporting.

Blow C.S. Lewis, how would Alban Krailsheimer (a bit more recent) feel?

And strangely, St Hilda's team themselves seem a trifle coy about Matt Rattley: in their "Our people A-Z" at https://www.st-hildas.ox.ac.uk/people he is one of the ones with no photograph.