On teasing
A psychologist tries to convince us that teasing is a good thing.
The reason teasing is viewed as inherently damaging is that it is too often confused with bullying. But bullying is something different; it’s aggression, pure and simple. Bullies steal, punch, kick, harass and humiliate. Sexual harassers grope, leer and make crude, often threatening passes. They’re pretty ineffectual flirts. By contrast, teasing is a mode of play, no doubt with a sharp edge, in which we provoke to negotiate life’s ambiguities and conflicts.
Well that makes things simple, but it makes them too simple. Bullying isn’t something entirely and clearly and unmistakably different – there’s a lot of overlap between the two. There’s also a lot of deliberate shifting back and forth between the two, and disguising of the transaction – in short there’s a lot of bullying (a lot of aggression and humiliation) that is called teasing (and perhaps even has a teasing aspect) but is really bullying (at least in part). Keltner gives this away with that ‘no doubt with a sharp edge’ – damn right with a sharp edge, and that’s why the whole subject is so fraught. How many billions of parents have squalled at their children how many times every day ‘stop teasing her/him/them!’? Teasing is very often mixed; it is not always or reliably purely affectionate or friendly or facetious; and it is massively subject to misunderstanding. I think Keltner is right that it shouldn’t be stamped out altogether everywhere, but it does need caution. Surely anyone who’s ever teased or been teased (i.e., everyone) knows this?
We may use “teasing” to refer to the affectionate banter of middle-school friends, to the offensive passes of impulsive bosses and to the language of heart-palpitating flirtation, to humiliation that scars psyches (harsh teasing about obesity can damage a child’s sense of self for years) and to the repartee that creates a peaceful space between siblings.
Exactly – and that’s why it’s not completely different from bullying. Of course harsh teasing about obesity can damage a child’s sense of self for years – it can damage it for life. So can harsh teasing about similar flaws – age, ugliness, you name it. It’s a ‘mode of play’ with huge potential for harm; it needs care in handling.
Still, it’s hard not to remember why teasing has a bad name when it results in what sounds an awful lot like humiliation. In situations where power asymmetries exist, as they do in a frat house, how do we separate a productive tease from a damaging one? In part it’s the nature of the provocation. Productive teasing is rarely physically hurtful and doesn’t expose deep vulnerabilities — like a romantic failure or a physical handicap.
Yes but then there’s the other kind, which does expose deep vulnerabilities, and is not entirely different from bullying.
I bet the Times got a lot of mail on this piece, and I bet I can guess how it went.
Well my understanding of “teasing” is that by definition it falls short of any significant or continued desire to belittle the object and cause any long lasting damage… often it’s a healthily temporary interaction where an individual or group can subvert the blowhard and self important, the person whio takes themselves too seriously, and healthily, benignly bring them down a peg or two; it’s developmentally important. I’m not sure why you object to it – e.g. teasing organised religion is largely what Monty Python did with Life of Brian. They hardly set out to bring down the establishment. Bullying is what the Mullahs who stirred up violence as a result of those (pretty useless) cartoons did – they wanted beheadings and new laws to forbid any criticism of their religion – it is a related but different concept.
But bullying is usually an abuse of a power relationship whereas teasing need not be. It is difficult (although not impossible) for a child to bully a parent but they can certainly tease them.
Or indeed an uncle. The little gits.
If I’d not be so sure of OB’s good and wholesome intentions, I would consider her a bully rather than a tease. As it stands, I’m quite happy to be teased – it keeps me awake.
But that doesn’t in fact fit the definition of teasing, let alone the practice. The Concise Oxford has at the beginning of 1, ‘Assail playfully or maliciously.’ If everyone understood teasing to exclude any hint of bullying, why would anyone ever object to teasing? Yes of course often it’s healthy subversion etc etc, but also often it’s something else. It’s not restricted to the powerless playfully assailing the powerful, after all; the powerful can ‘tease’ the powerless, too.
Life of Brian and the Motoons were teasing religion – a thing, an abstraction. Teasing a person is a different thing. It may be benign, it may be cruel but warranted, it may be just cruel. Yes it is easier for children to tease parents than to bully them, but parents can do both (and so can children once they’re old enough). Teasing doesn’t go just from lower to higher; it can go in any direction.
Classic example of your cryptic commenting, JoB. As far as I can tell that’s a strong insult lightly disguised as irony, but who the fuck knows.
And if you’ve ever watched children teasing, it’s almost always malicious and hurtful. ‘Sticks and stones will break your bones, and names will almost always hurt you.’ And it’s very hard to tease just in fun. It can only be done by some people and to some people, and only with great delicacy.
That’s the thing – it really is very hard. It’s impossible unless there’s unquestioned affection on both sides (and even then it’s still tricky).
Even the situations Keltner describes are clearly partly painful and humiliating. He says they end in bonding, but…well it’s tricky.
I’m not seizing the high ground by the way; I’ve done my share of ambiguous ‘teasing’ in the past.
It’s impossible unless there’s unquestioned affection on both sides (and even then it’s still tricky).
Exactly.
In close friendships, close sibling relationships and other family relationships, teasing can be harmless. But even in those relationships, perhaps especially in those relationships, one misstep is all it takes to slice someone to the heart.
Oh my, Ophelia, I’m sorry but there is nothing I can say to convince you I am seriously enough so let me just say it is a pity that you don’t realize it is your own strategy to tease, that you’re very good at it, that you do it in very personal ways & so on & so forth.
But it is even more a pity that lately you’re letting woolly thinking getting the better of you. Surely – obviously, teasing is not always a good thing but so what? – good eating is not always a good thing. Yet here you are, singling it out as if we have to go all mortal-sin from guilt of not always being all lovy-dovy & compassionate.
Maybe it’s just to scare me the fuck a-way? In that case: not a chance ;-)
Oh yes, it was mild praise disguised in a bloody hard counterfactual. Actually, the rest was “my share of ambiguous teasing”, unashamedly in the present.
JoB – good eating is not always a good thing, but so what? Eating is not the same kind of thing as teasing, so the comparison is just pointlessly irrelevant. Here’s a news flash: there are more than two possibilities: we’re not limited to either ‘always being all lovy-dovy & compassionate’ or malicious (to use the Concise Oxford’s adjective) teasing.
You’re wrong; it is not my ‘strategy’ to tease. I mock public writing, but I don’t tease it. You must be confusing the two.
Please don’t wink. If you have some weird fantasy going that we’re ‘sparring’ or some such thing – please get over it.
That was a cross-post; I hadn’t seen the second, shorter comment. I haven’t got a clue what it’s supposed to mean.
JoB, I really wish you would stop all this ‘playfulness’ or whatever it’s supposed to be. It’s tedious.
Now I do feel bullied. Oh well … you are right, of course.
It’s been proved. Teasing is not bullying. Elton John libel case dismissed. Guardian ‘irony’ and ‘teasing’ not defmamation. Elton John tesased.