Teasing mostly uses speech to make fun of, to criticize, to taunt, to isolate, or to otherwise harm. Teasing uses wounding words to ridicule how someone thinks, how they look, how they act—how they are.

Teasing can draw negative social attention to the person teased. Even when supposedly jokingly given (“I was just kidding!”), teasing can be hurtfully received. At worst, others can laugh at what one is humorously name-called: “Ugly,” “Goofball,” “Weirdo,” “Dummy,” “Tiny,” “Fatso,” or “Spaz,” for painful example.

Teasing puts another person down.

Some teasing can be playful, when giving a joking compliment, for example: “Is getting all A’s the best you can do?” More often, however, teasing can be painful—the use of demeaning words to kid or mock someone, to socially embarrass or insult, to make light of them, to pick on them, to demean or diminish them. “With looks like that, you ought to be in a zoo!”

When teasing provokes teasing in return, teasing contests can ensue as escalating insults increase hostility and cause serious harm to see who can hurt each other the worst.

Because of the uncertainty, insecurity, and self-consciousness, adolescence is a more sensitive age than childhood. Now growing up can be made more scary when teased for physical changes that naturally unfold when they attract this hurtful play—which is what........

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