A Cambridge University academic who quit teaching in 2015 following an internal investigation into complaints of sexual harassment released erotic fiction about his students under a pseudonym, Tortoise media has uncovered.
Dr. Peter Hutchinson was a lecturer in modern and medieval languages at Trinity Hall until 2015 when 10 students made complaints of ‘inappropriate’ comments including asking one student ‘does that turn you on?’ when discussing a dominatrix in a book, and if others had ‘ever had any love bites’.
Hutchinson was asked to stop teaching and attending social events after the internal review, but in 2019 was found to have retained some college privileges. Protests ensued, with 1,300 students and alumni signing an open letter calling for his resignation. He resigned in November last year.
Now, however, it has emerged that during the 2015 review, he published an erotic novel called ‘First Time: Ooo-la-la!’ under the name ‘Barry Able’. The book’s back cover reads:
‘An innocent first year undergraduate at an Oxford College is sent down for alleged sexual impropriety. Through a misunderstanding he lands a job in the City, where he makes a particularly favourable impression on the owner of the firm for which he works, a colourful and hopelessly politically incorrect figure.
‘He relishes life in the financial world and the experiences that it brings, not least the art of seduction. After a series of erotic adventures through a light-hearted satire of education, life in the City, psychiatrists, the police and the legal profession, the hero decides to set up a company for innocents such as himself, and discreetly returns to Oxford.’
According to the BBC, most female students in the book at ‘members of a college sex club called “The Virgins” and must sleep with a man - or senior academic - each week to remain in the group.’
It references bondage, voyeurism and public humiliation and refers to female students as ‘well-endowed’ in lingerie, calling on a ‘brazen hussy’. The book is also said to echo parts of a sexual assault court case brought against Hutchinson in 2006 by an ex-student, Ellie Pyemont – now 38. He was cleared of wrongdoing at the time, with Pyemont elaborating on what happened during the case on Twitter in October last year.
More recently, she told the BBC she ‘recognised’ in the book. ‘It is pathetic that he wrote and self-published this misogynistic, crass and deluded story,’ Pyremont said. ‘The significant point is that the person behind this derisory book was in a position of power over young people at Trinity Hall for decades.’
Hutchinson, however, has denied his affiliation to the main character. ‘[The] recasting is so broad that it bears no relation to real life,’ he said. ‘It needs to be emphasised that an author rarely thinks the same way as his main character.’
He also defended the front cover of his book, which he confirms is a picture of a Trinity Hall student’s leg in stockings, saying he didn’t ‘see a problem using an unidentifiable photo’ of a student and was not present when it was taken. He said the book had a ‘progressive view of women’ who were ‘totally liberated’.
Grazia has reached out to the University of Cambridge for comment.
Read More:
'Hardly Anyone Looked Like Us': The Reality Of Being A Black Woman At Cambridge
Cambridge University Are Considering Compulsory Classes To Teach About Consent In Sex