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."

I never use gender for pronouns, I use the correct English, which is sex-based. No-one agreed to have their language mangled. I don't consent to it. Nor does anyone outside of an echo chamber.

Also better for safeguarding as in 'Your daughter will be sharing a tent with him' having a totally different meaning in safeguarding terms to 'your daughter will be sharing a tent with her'. Because sex matters for safeguarding what with men committing 98% of all sex crimes and in fact men who seek access to young women or girls by deception and sleight of language probably are an even greater risk.

It's absolutely grim what this man is doing. And all the students are silenced. There's no way that girls, women or men from many different cultures and religions that will be present at Oxford are ok with this. Apparently it's all 'inclusion' except for all the people they're excluding with this anti-social and inappropriate behaviour.

If he thought it was ok he wouldn't have deleted Tanya de Grunwald's very reasonable question. He knows it's not, presumably that's part of the thrill.

And if one of your white students turned up to a revision session wearing blackface, would you and Oxford be proudly tolerant of that?

Now now you silly ladies, you should be educated by your intellectualistical superioriorioriors about the sophistimaculated profoundical agilityfied hyperflexible cogitationing and super-kewwwwl inclusitivisic progressival diversificacious embraciating that proper Oxfordibrigian BeKind Righteous Folx can demonstrate... but only to particular groups of people.

I wonder how those particular groups of people are selected... oh, that must be part of the intellectualistical superioriorioriors sophistimaculated profoundical agilityfied hyperflexible cogitationing and super-kewwwwl inclusitivisic progressival diversificacious embraciating of proper Oxfordibrigian BeKind Righteous Folx.

With all due respect, it's your parody that sounds silly. Nowhere have I claimed to be more clever than anyone else on this thread. You don't have the slightest idea of my background or what kind of person I am. You're just resorting to stereotypes or myths of what you think people at Oxford might be like.

Just as people are jumping to conclusions of what they think M. Rattley might be like.

Just because people disagree with you doesn't mean they are pretentious or see themselves as intellectually superior.

I disagree with trans-exclusionary feminism. I'm sorry you seem to find that so threatening. There are many different strands of feminism in the world.

For the record, tutors at Oxford are a diverse bunch. Not everyone here would agree with my point of view either.

Take for instance Selina Todd, who is a brilliant historian, but whom I differ with on trans issues.

The problem with othering entire groups of people is that you make a lot of assumptions, and miss a lot of nuance.

To feel “comfortable” he needs to wear enormous silicone tits and expose his fake cleavage to everyone.

Do you not think that this might just be a sex thing? I would politely suggest that he is either aroused by this (in the manner of Grayson Perry), or he really enjoys making people round him uncomfortable whilst defying them to pass comment, or both.

He is a walking red flag who is seeing what boundaries he can push.

Just how gullible are you?

I've already agreed with you that I'm silly. As you say, you're definitely not silly, yet simultaneously you don't see yourself as intellectually superior.

Could you expand on what you mean by assumptions and nuance?

The way I see it, the whole concept of transgenderism is sexist and anti-feminist.

Trans ideology says that being a woman is about behaviour and appearance. It says that a man can be a woman if he behaves and presents in a certain way, and holds a (false) belief that he somehow 'is' a woman. It says that certain behaviours are only for women, or only for men, which is sexist and anti-feminist.

There is no strand of feminism which incorporates the sexism inherent in trans ideology.

Just as people are jumping to conclusions of what they think M. Rattley might be like.

Any man who dresses like that in the workplace is either mentally unwell or he enjoys harassing women.

I can't think of any other possible reasons. Can you?

I wonder what 'assumptions' The Righteous would make about a white tutor who quirkily, scholastically and comfortably expresses their diverse inner selves like this to a class of freshers from Asia.

Methinks there might be a bit less indulgent inclusivity and a tad more othering...

Nope, the fake tits change things. Men who are wearing dresses because why shouldn't men wear dresses don't feel the need to accessorize said dress with giant tits.

In fact, a rule of thumb, fake tits are usually a pretty strong indicator that a man has something weird going on in his ideas about women. Giant fake tits make it a dead cert.

I didn't see your answer to this question @oxfordfeminist.

@oxfordfeminist
The problem with othering entire groups of people is that you make a lot of assumptions, and miss a lot of nuance.
And Matt with the huge silicone tits isn't making women feel 'othered' by displaying his fetish in public?

Academics - and I have experience of them - love the word 'nuance', but sometimes things really are simple. This man is trolling women.

But apparently it's more important that he feels comfortable and expresses his true self than that the women around him feel that they're being treated with a modicum of respect.

Got it.

God it’s so facile! ‘Feels comfortable’ wearing a pair of giant fake beasts to teach undergraduate girls.

No analysis, no thinking, a total abandonment of generations of academic interrogation of dress, pleasure, comfort, affect, communication, gender, power… this deliberate self-stupidification into the complacent pap of ‘he feels comfortable’ so that you don’t have to risk anyone thinking there’s a brain in your compliant female head.

I'd be very interested in the answer and I basically re-asked the same question.

I've been that nervous new fresher from Asia, albeit many decades ago when everybody was less clever and agile-thinking.

Perhaps if my lecturer had stood in front of us as his comfortable true self with his eyes pulled into slits, skin painted yellow and speaking with a Flied Lice accent, I'd have been scolded to focus on the profound scholastic learning instead of being an un-nuanced exclusionary othering phobe?

You never get a reply to actual hard questions. Just never.

It is wearying beyond believe to have repeated accusations of you’re being mean, intolerant, let’s all just hug without any of their logic or reasoning explained. For once, I’d love if one of the women throwing accusations of assumptions and lack of nuance to actually say the words out loud.

That you agree that being a woman is about behaviour and appearance… that a man can be a woman if he behaves and presents in a certain way, and holds a belief that he 'is' a woman.

What about it @oxfordfeminist, will you confirm that is your view?

Blokes at work used to feel comfortable with their topless calendars on show and groping wims in the office. Even they wouldn’t have turned up looking like Kenny Everett! Huge plastic tits are sexual harassment and anyone trying to say otherwise is a sandwich short of a picnic

I was brought up in very religious evangelical Christian circles and there’s something so recognizable about the way Oxford feminist and her ilk talk that makes me feel vomity. It’s the self-abnegating obedience, the claiming of righteousness through feminine compliance, the complacent repeating of the right words, the cloak of kind phrases, the self-satisfied refusal to engage one’s own brain, the smug deference to male authority and ‘comfort’. Ugh. I’m off to shower.

I find the repeated assertion that this lecturer feels comfortable wearing his enormous falsies vastly amusing.

Nobody could find those things comfortable. It must be torture wearing them for any length of time. Sweaty and horrible. Also heavy; they probably play hell with the balance of his vertebrae and give him backache. Come summer having them on will (we can hope) become seriously painful.

But maybe masochism is the point?

There was a man (trans-identifying) who made himself 'feel comfortable'* by rolling around in used nappies. Unfortunately for him he wasn't an Oxford academic so to jail he's gone.

*despite being witnessed with his pants down while making himself comfy the judge apparently bought that it wasn't sexual.

As a rule, parodies do aim to sound silly.

They're a good way to signal disagreement, yes, but they do so by exaggerating key characteristics of the original.

It was fairly recognisable to me what those were in the above: above all, tone and rather enjoyably unconscious irony.

I second the calls for OF to model the nuance we lack by breaking down the difference between blackface and what's happening here, with particular reference to the concept of "othering" through reductive and parodic representation.

Speaking of, I'm also interested in her definition of parody. She doesn't see it in the post above, and clearly doesn't see it in this individual's presentation, either... Another golden opportunity to explain a subtle distinction?

What if I feel comfortable in a bikini? Can I wear that, and only that, to work? What if I want to go topless, with just a thong? Can I wear a t-shirt saying, "Suck my dick you cunty students." Is that OK? Why not? Do you agree that there are some expectations around acceptable workwear, even in an organisation with no dress code?

@oxfordfeminist

You are not showing yourself, or your university, in a good light. Other people here will have degrees from Oxford or Cambridge. We don't have to 'think' what 'people at Oxford might be like'.

The least you could do is to stop ignoring the straightforward questions that posters on here have repeatedly asked. If you are unable to answer, because you don't know the answers or perhaps haven't reached a coherent position, then some research would be helpful. The Break it down for me threads might be a good place to start.