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."

@oxfordfeminist do you really not think there’s any element of sexual behaviour in a man wearing giant fake breasts?

Or is your argument that yes, there’s obviously an element of sexual motivation here, but you judge it harmless?

Do you feel that being ok with men pushing sexual boundaries in public makes you a cooler kind of feminist?

😂😂😂😂😂

That's amazing. Yes, I think that's exactly what it would look like.

It's deeply ironic that OF thinks this debate - where she's free to say she sees no misogyny in massive fake tits worn by a male lecturer- is hostile after what Dr North experienced. Now THAT was hostile. A hostile workplace. So hostile in fact that I doubt anyone would ever be able to make a complaint for fear of the very obvious consequences of doing so.

It's like saying 'you're free to complain but just know you'll be kicked off your course, branded a bigot and possibly physically threatened if you do '

Yes, I've been thinking I've never worked anywhere I've had a colleague who would need to be told such things.

Certainly never need to be told 'don't wear giant rubber breasts at work'.

Because people without major issues don't do this kind of thing .

This!

How many students are going to self-exclude from the field or even uni after encountering Mr.Giant Fake Boobs? I might have and it sounds like others here might have as well. At the very least, it would have been uncomfortable and distracting but also possibly triggering.

Why is his comfort so much more important than the comfort of others at Oxford?

I think this board is pretty polite on the whole. Robust, but polite. I've seen some very vicious AIBU threads that could definitely be described as hostile.

I think most of us are mystified, really, as to why oxfordfeminist believes what he/she claims to believe. All workplaces have dress codes, some strict, some relaxed, but I can't think of any outside the Benny Hill show where a man wearing giant fake breasts would be acceptable.

So the mystery is whether oxfordfeminist genuinely holds this opinion that most people would consider literally insane, or whether he/she is just trolling for the hell of it.

About blackface, I would say that race and gender are very different issues, and in some ways it's a big red herring (not to mention downright racist) to conflate the two.

I would ask OF to expand on this, but no doubt they're way too busy. I shall hostile-ly point out that in my opinion (as an Asian person who first arrived as a shy and bewildered fresher) a blithe airy handwavey unevidenced dismissal of this sort is an even bigger red herring yellow chicken.

Where I differ with most people on this thread is that I don't see Matt R as having done anything complaint-worthy

So the "for the record" when you claimed way upthread you'd take account of the concerns of the students to whom you have a duty of care, you meant you'd airily dismiss their concerns in the same way as above, because you see the complainants as unjustified unnuanced bigots who aren't concentrating on being scholarly, and Humongoboobs as the victim?

I would return to the point that this lecturer should be judged on the basis of what they say and how they teach, not on what they're wearing.

we all dress in ways that make us feel comfortable, whether that means wearing makeup or cutting/styling our hair or choosing particular clothes or having plastic surgery

So younger me encounters Humongoboobs as my lecturer, if I dare to complain OF would scold younger me (very nicely no doubt, in a purely educational spirit) to judge my lecturer only on the basis of what he says and teaches because only a bigot would feel mocked, belittled and sexually harassed.

But if younger me encounters Mr Yunioshi as my lecturer? Is is OK for me to feel mocked, belittled and racially harassed?

What. Is. The. Difference.

One would think such a loquacious keen Oxonian educator as OF would find it trivially simple to explain.

With reference to your final para, yeah, I think it's the latter. I also do not believe OF is at Oxford or has any students. Just my impression, but I'd put quite a bit of money on that. Possibly scraping. Possibly the big rubber boobed man himself. Who knows?

OF has obviously been following the thread, if not posting, because as soon as there's something he/she does want to discuss (or something he/she actually knows something about, in real life) up he/she pops on the thread!

I think it's just another game to OF.

And complains that we are hostile!

I used to try to argue in good faith on these threads and explain the rationale behind trans-inclusive feminism

Sorry if I missed it, but did you answer as to whether there is any difference between men and women in your view, and if so, an example of such a difference?

About blackface, I would say that race and gender are very different issues, and in some ways it's a big red herring (not to mention downright racist) to conflate the two.

No one is conflating race with gender. “Blackface” - a white person attempting to resemble a black person - is being used as an example of someone pretending to be what they aren’t, as when a man pretends to be a woman.

I am conflating race-based insult with sex-based insult (and nationality-based insult).

There is a privileged mindset that believes the powerful and privileged can entertain themselves at the expense of those without power or privilege. Just because. Boobyman and OF share that mindset.

Also, if we’re going there, race is biologically pretty nebulous while sex is definitively categorical.

Very good point.

@oxfordfeminist, I'm glad you came back to engage to some degree, and on the page where you reappear at least, am finding your posts more considered and interesting than earlier. But so much of what you post just doesn't stand up. I don't mean difference of opinion, I mean internal logical consistency.

The above quoted by Love, for example. You write: "I'm really tempted to engage with some of the questions, but it's such a hostile and one-sided space here, it feels like a self-destructive exercise from my point of view (in that I'm just setting myself up to be attacked).”

OF, you're already posting fairly frequently. To say that, in addition to this, you think it's best to adopt a pretty provocative and sometimes insulting style over cautious, reasoned argument, protects yours from "being attacked" just (I really can't put this any less directly, really) doesn't make sense.

Below are some of your earlier posts. So many are like this. Have you considered the possibility that this kind of thing is rather more "self-destructive" more than a few analytical paragraphs breaking down the blackface conundrum may be rather more likely to protect you from "being attacked" than posting things like the below?! If not, I can only think, again, that what you mean by "self-destructive" may be exposing your arguments to challenge by keen FWR minds...

I'm happy that Matt R. is just getting on with their revision teaching as normal, despite all the hate speech.

Despite people who have never met Matt falling down the rabbit hole of transphobia.

I disagree with trans-exclusionary feminism. I'm sorry you seem to find that so threatening.

With all due respect, this thread sounds a lot like a witch hunt.

Has Matt or anyone else said that he is trans?

Edited to say I think I recall that he uses they them pronouns. So he is not a transwoman. So whatever reaction he triggers in me, it isn't transphobia.

Creepy controlling bullying egotistic fetishistic misogynist man phobia at best.

Woah, typos in the above. I really really like the word really, really.

Quite.

It would only be 'transphobic' if very inappropriate fetishistic and sexualised behaviours involving non consenting participants (put as delicately as possible) were supposed to be an integral part of transgenderism, something applying to all trans identified people and justified in why this should be tolerated and overlooked.

Women here are not 'transphobic'. They are intolerant of men behaving badly.

MrMenno has been talking to Tanya de Grunwald about this on his youtube channel. I haven't listened to it yet, flagging it up in case anyone else wants to listen. Or already has, knowing my luck I'll have missed any mention of it.😬

I posted the link upthread.

It was very good, and Mr Menno, being a man himself, was taking the motivation, specifically the sexual aspects of the motivation, very seriously.

Ha, of course I missed it! 🙄😂
I was trying to keep up, honest.
Sounds like a good listen.

OF throws out the usual 'one-sided' argument. There has to be some element of one-sidedness as most women on this board are FOR womens' rights! And not the support and defence of men's fetishes. How can OF not see this? I am beginning to doubt their credentials. Of course, anyone can say anything and profess to be anything on an anonymous forum.

But I find it exasperating, frustrating and bloody infuriating that OF can argue that this man's use of huge rubber boobs is ok? What feminist would?
And if he hasn't said he's trans, how can it be transphobic to discuss him??
Those poor students. I do wonder if there's been any pushback? (if there has, sorry I have missed it)
It must be very hard to concentrate on lectures. Creepy to say the least.

Mr Menno gets it.

Re the 'one sided' - I do so often wonder if activists on TRA boards wibble and worry about is their conversation one sided and are activists properly listening to and ensuring sex-realist views amongst their own?

I mean obviously not. It would be as ridiculous as trying to ask women to believe that a man with large rubber tits on while teaching is just innocently expressing himself in an appropriate way.

This.
And another one asking why it's racist to even compare blackface to drag face. In both cases members of the dominant group are parodying members of the oppressed group.

Here's that link to the article again:
https://scholarship.kentlaw.iit.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3209&context=cklawreview

Just looking up the Equality Act to see what it said about the Alison Bailey case and accidentally landed on this text which seems very relevant to Biggus Tittus:

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/data.pdf

40A Employer duty to prevent sexual harassment of employees

(1) An employer (A) must take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of employees of A in the course of their employment.

(2) “Sexual harassment” in subsection (1) means harassment of the kind described in section 26(2) (unwanted conduct of a sexual nature).

(3) A contravention of subsection (1) (or a contravention of section 111 or 112 that relates to a contravention of subsection (1)) is enforceable as an unlawful act under Part 1 of the Equality Act 2006 (and, by virtue of section 120(8) and (9), is enforceable only by the Commission under that Part or by an employment tribunal in accordance with section 124A (compensation uplift in employee sexual harassment cases)).

And 26(2) says:
(2) A also harasses B if—
(a) A engages in unwanted conduct of a sexual nature, and
(b) the conduct has the purpose or effect referred to in subsection (1)(b).

and 1(b) states:
(b) the conduct has the purpose or effect of—
(i) violating B's dignity, or
(ii) creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for B.

Oxford Uni seems to be letting Matt create a hostile, degrading and offensive environment for some of the female staff and students.