More about teasing

[nancylebov]

reposted from Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nancy.lebovitz/posts/10221519403996940


(There are good comments there, some talking about friendly teasing, some pointing out longterm pain from unfriendly teasing. Another post turned up that sometimes anti-bullying policies work and sometimes they don't.)

I'm going to tell a little more truth than usual. When I was a kid, I was teased a fair amount, and a lot of it was about my height. I was in my 30s or later before I calmed down relatively speaking on the subject.
Teasing isn't harmless fun, no matter what excuses people who like teasing make.

The situation is confused by the advice people who get teased are given. "Just ignore them" may be impossible, and in any case, it took me quite a while to realize the injustice of expecting the person being teased to have unusual psychological control while the person who teases them can be as incontinent as they please.

I've gotten the impression that when people who like teasing are asked to stop, they react as though their air is threatened.

I've been told a lot of times about friendly teasing relationships, though I can't say I've heard it from both/all sides of the relationship.

I grant that it can be hard to tell when teasing in unwelcome since people are told to just ignore it and there's always the risk of being teased more (it's good for you, it will toughen you up, and besides, people feel like doing it) if you say you don't like it. I suggest that if a person doesn't tease you back, they might not be liking it.

This didn't apply when I was a kid, but I've seen "insults everyone" as a way of taking edge off of particular insults. I'm not convinced anyone manages that, and why would it be a good thing if they did?
Not to make this about Dave Chappell, but if he doesn't insult cis people for being cis, he isn't insulting everyone. (I'm not sure what the insult would be. Maybe lack of imagination?)

Part of it may be that people (on a lot of issues) don't see how their behavior adds up, especially when it's not just them doing it.

Comments

[sara]

A world where nobody teased me would literally be a world without love or joy. I'm sorry that it isn't that kind of experience for you.

[firecat]

Teasing, like a number of other human interactions, ought to be negotiated and consensual between the parties—or at the very least the parties should come from very simiilar cultural backgrounds. Then it can be fun. When it's done between people who don't know each other well, it's a fucking nightmare.

I've received both kinds. I remember particularly a family reunion where I was seeing some family members I hadn't met since I was very young. One of them began teasing me, I guess assuming that I liked the same kind of teasing as his other cousins did, the ones he had spent a lot more time with. I didn't like it, and I responded by teasing him back, in a way he didn't like. Then we both laid off.

[cmcmck]

As a survivor of both abuse and bullying, I am aware that there's a fine line between teasing and out and out bullying or worse, but I think it is possible to be aware of that fine line.

[cellio]

"Just ignore them" places all the burden on the victim. Also, "just X" is massively dismissive; I get this far too often because my disability is inconvenient for people, like "can't you just (do lots of extra work to save me having to do one tiny thing to be able to work together)?". It is not ok. We should not have to consent to bullying, and continued teasing after a "no" is bullying.

People who must tease to feel personally validated need to "just" get over it.

[andrewducker]

Teasing is possible between people with a shared context and if it's mutual and at a level where it doesn't actually make either person significantly uncomfortable. But both people need to know enough to be sure that the other person isn't going to feel hurt by it. I have friends who cannot be teased, and ones who enjoy back and forth meanness as a game.