OliveOilMom's Bullying Thread: Universal Definitions needed

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OliveOilMom made an excellent point in her bullying thread. I want to take this further. When people state a definition to a word why do they claim it is my meaning? Shouldn't we have a universal definition for our words that most people agree upon?

Thank you! I agree that we need definitions, especially about things that carry such consequences and can be so serious. If we say that not inviting a kid to a party is bullying that minimizes it so much that when the kid who gets his clothes stolen while he's in the shower after gym class and then locked out of the bathroom naked in the gym in front of everybody will not be taken seriously when he says he's been bullied because people will start to equate complaining of bullying as whining over something insignificant. While not being invited to a party may be very important and hurtful to a child, it is certainly not up there with being shoved out of the bathroom and locked out naked in front of the entire high school. It minimizes the second kids situation and makes it much less likely that he will get some sort of help to stop it. I think there needs to be a level of seriousness that needs to be reached before something is called bullying. I think that calling such minor things that are done without intent to hurt "bullying" minimizes the pain that kids go through who are really bullied.

It kind of reminds me of an argument that happened in an AOL chat room ten or so years ago, but I still remember it. We were talking about some news story that I can't remember now, that involved rape. Then the topic changed to rape in general and date rape vs violent stranger rape, etc. Self defense was discussed as well as what types of prison sentences or punishment rapists should get. All just general conversation and while we were kicking around the argument of statutory rape which was consensual vs forced rape which was not, someone said that they considered it rape when a husband wakes his wife up in the morning by having sex with her. You know what I mean. You wake up in the morning and there he is doing that to you, which if you are like me, is the last thing you want to happen first thing in the morning. But, you can throw it into high gear, act like you are enjoying it and that will make it over with that much faster so you can get up and go make the coffee. This started a huge debate about what defines rape and could a married woman be raped by her husband etc. One thing that was mentioned was that if we start defining rape as any sex that the woman does not want to have, we minimize the trauma that actual rape victims go through. The same girl who said it's rape to be woke up by sex said that it's also rape when a wife or gf gives in and has sex even when she doesn't want it to just shut him up, or even to make him happy when he's not bothering her about it, but she doesn't want it. She said it was coerced so therefore rape. Now, rape and bullying are two different things, but I would imagine that if lawmakers tried to define rape as the morning wake up call like that or the sex-so-he-will-just-shutup-about-it-already, there would be a huge public outcry. I think that would be justified as well, because that's lumping women who are hurt and traumatized and suffering from the memory of it for the rest of their lives in with women who may have been inconvenienced for 20 minutes but don't have any hard feelings about it.

The same would happen if we start lumping spankings in with child abuse. Sure, some spankings are over the top, uncalled for, and entirely too violent, and do probably border on child abuse, but if we start saying that all spankings are child abuse and we treat them as such, then that minimizes the trauma that children who were actually abused feel.

I'm not saying that kids who had other kids be mean to them or were excluded or even picked on were not traumatized or did not have a hard time, what I'm saying is that what was done to them wasn't bullying. Someone can be hurt by the way they are treated by other kids even if it's not bullying.

If we want to put a stop to bullying, which I think we definitely need to do, we have to be able to define it. It has to be an objective definition, not a subjective one. If someone is angry with me and walks past me and accidentally bumps me with their shoulder and doesn't apologize I may feel like I have been assaulted, but I wasn't actually assaulted. The 7yo I posted about who made his finger into a "gun" and told another kid "I'm gonna shoot you" while playing cops and robbers at recess wasn't threatening anyone, even though he said words that could very well be said as a threat. One girl pointing out to her friends that another girl is wearing clothes that clash horribly is not bullying, although it can be very humiliating if the tacky girl overhears it. If the girl were to say it very loud so she has the attention of everyone else and points it out in such a way as to make everyone laugh at the tacky girl then that is bullying. I think that if we as a society keep on with allowing the victim to always define bullying, it will be bullying when someone is picked last for a team in gym class. It will end up as bullying when a girl doesn't get asked out for homecoming. It will end up as bullying when a guy doesn't get a valentine.

I think to punish it, we have to know what it is and we need to have some sort of criteria that it has to meet. Otherwise we are just shooting at ants in the dark.

I dont agree with the objective definition. Bullying always is something subjective, because its targeted at an victim, and only the victim itself can say if it feels bullied. So as example I dont felt myself bullied when I was a kid, and normally felt pretty ok with my classmates. But when talking in german aspie forum with others, I learned that others would have been absolutely unhappy. So as example I always was a bit for my own, often read in pauses, separated myself, ... so bullying meant for me, that I would have been disturbed by others. I didnt feel avoided, they simply let me be the way I was, and when they lacked a person for cardsgames, they also asked me from now and then, also when we did things as complete class. While for others bullying meant, that their classcomerades didnt invite them to their private parties, didnt ask them to spend their afternoons with each other, didnt include them to their close friends, ... So for an introverted Aspie, bullying can mean something complete opposite as for an extroverted Aspie. There also can not be a objective rule for bullying. So if we said that not including someone to your friends, was bullying, it wouldnt match introverted Aspies, because they would be bullied by normal social expectations. If I dont want to visit private parties, but would have been invited to those, then my feelings would not have been respected by them. Bullying is for me having no respect for a persons deeds and feelings. With an introverted Aspie it means not respecting his needs to stay outside of a group, for an extroverted Aspies it means not respecting his needs for friendships and so on.

Thats what I meant, so this are things that did happen it my class, but didnt affect me, because it didnt disturb me reading, it didnt affect my SIs, it dindt disturb me separating, it didnt affect me in my routines or physically. For an extroverted Aspie this is bullying, I agree, because he wants to be part of a group and for it you need to accept all that social stuff things, that also includes that your worth in a group depends upon the worth other gives you. So if a girl motivates other girl to see the extroverted Aspie as someone with lower worth, this affects the Aspies desire to be appreciated by a social group. But if you dont care for it, its no bullying but only dumb girls talking about nonsense stuff. It also depends on your classcomrades, so I was in a school for environmental engineering, with a lots of political left people, so when a schoolcollegua tried to bully me, by pointing on me not having brand cloths and school and not havent visited ever the "cool" discothek of our area, people were more laughing about him, because of him seeing such thing as important.

There is also class mechanic. So if you are the only one whose schoolbag gets hidden, or whose chair is painted so your cloths gets coloured, its bullying. If its a class custom and every classmate is "victim" of it randomly, its simply a class habbit, so you dont take that personally because its simply a running gag in your class.

CubeDemon, I think the reason it is hard to get people to agree on a universal definition for many things, is it is often not so cut and dry. Sometimes things look more like fuzzy set theory where the lines between categories are just not so clear. Imagine you had a world where secondary colors and beyond had no names. All you had were black, white, red, blue, and yellow as names to choose from. Where would you put gray? Well, it would depend on how light or dark the shade was. It would be subjective. And what would you do if the mix was equal? What I think was closer to black, you might think was closer to white. Sure you could quantify it, but most people wouldn't bother. The same would hold for purple or any secondary color. Is it red or blue? I would depend on the mix of blue to red, (or other primary colors) Where would you put brown?

In life, so many things are like this. Now, in OliveOilMom's rape example, I do not agree with her because in my view lack of consent is lack of consent. There is language to distinguish different types of rape. I would not look at two 15 year olds in a consensual relationship the same as I would look at something where one person was 10 and the other was thirty, or something violent. I don't think that I want to derail this thread too much, but if my husband ever did that while I was sleeping (which he wouldn't) that would not be Ok with me and would therefore be rape. Whether there are worse types is not the point, as far as how I look at it. If another couple is OK with that, then that is their deal, and if there is consent, it is not rape.

Getting back to bullying, the formal definition (on dictionary.com) not including the archaic and obsolete meanings is:


bullying (references back to bully)

bul·ly
1 [bool-ee] Show IPA noun, plural bul·lies, verb, bul·lied, bul·ly·ing, adjective, interjection
noun
1.
a blustering, quarrelsome, overbearing person who habitually badgers and intimidates smaller or weaker people.


So being bullied would formally constitute being habitually badgered (habitually implying a pattern) or intimidated by a larger or more powerful person.

It does not say anything about severity. It talks about frequency and a power differential (which can include social status, I would think, which is what defines power to kids, I think)

Now does that mean that a weak, unpopular kid can't be a bully? If they pick on someone stronger, bigger, more popular etc. I would guess not. He/She would have to find someone even smaller, weaker or less popular to be a bully. Could he/she do something violent or horrible to a stronger, bigger, popular kid, that is worse than mild bullying. Yes.

Is the formal definition what schools use? I doubt it. It has in regular, vernacular speech been expanded to include other things. The aspie in me finds that annoying, but that is how it is. Language is a living thing.

Last edited by ASDMommyASDKid on 10 May 2013, 7:53 am, edited 1 time in total.

Well when you get married, consent for sex is implied. Once you have done it hundreds of times already, I think you are kind of past the "Do you mind if I touch you?" phase. Its inconsiderate, yes when you wake someone up that way, although some people like to be woke up that way. I used to when I was younger but now that I'm old, I want coffee rather than sex! I think it's more of a violation to go in my purse and take money or the debit card out without telling or asking me. I mean, I may have plans to use those later that day, and while having sex with my husband is no big deal, not being able to get gas to go somewhere is!

WTF O_o

No I dont know that. My partner is not a complete associal criminal as*hole, that thinks of me as a sex slave. O_o If he was, he wouldnt be my partner. O_o

And the last thing when my partner would freak totally out and did such a thing for me, is to acchieve my coffee, but to acchieve a police call and a lawyer. Your husband is violating you and treating you less then an animal, and you would think about coffee? I dont mean this offending in any way, but from my oppinion it seems to me, as if you dont see yourself with the worth you have. You are a human person. You are his partner. This means that you should treat each other whith more respect then anyone else in the world, thats whats partners are about. And if my partner woke up in the morning and would think to himself "Hm, ok, i could rub myself or go to the sexshop and get me a masturbating machine, but for the first thin I had to use my own hands which is so exhausting, and the second one costs 15$ and my girlfriend is less worth to me then 15$, so I better rape her.", please dont think about coffee. Think about how to never let this person enter your life again.

And yes this is rape. It may be rape without physical aggression, so you wont be wounded (I mean would be dumb to ruin his sexslave, because if he did his sexslave cant do its coffeeslavework.) but with this argument you would legalize all kind of rapings, as long as they use artifical fluid, avalaible in every shop, to avoid physical wounds. "So Mrs. ..., you were abused by a foreign guy who kidnapped you, but look, he used fluid to avoid hurting you, so there has happened no physical damage, so please stop talking about being raped..." - "So you were knocked out with medication at a party, and woke up with traces on your body, but you said you werent hurted and also dont remember the rape itself, so everything is ok, because you were cautionless anyway...." No. Simply NO. NONONONO!! ! A husband that does such a thing to you, is violating you. He is using you as a toilette for his penis. This is not the respect that you have to expect from your partner and husband. This is simply violation and disgracing you to a fuckobject.

And its not lumping women in any way, that were also physical hurted. There is rape, and this is a violation against the freedom of another person, and it is absolutly right to sue that, if they were physical hurted or not. And then there is physical assault. This is also an violation. And if you rape someone AND physical assault someone by raping then you will not only be sued for rape, but also for physical assault, simply because you commited both crimes and there is nothing wrong about getting sued for committing two crimes, when you commited two crimes. Simply because both are crimes. And because you "only" were violated with one of the crimes, sueing the criminal doesnt lump other victims in anyway, that not have "only" been raped but also physical assaulted.

YOU ARE NO SEXOBJECT! TO NOONE! And the last person that should view and treat you as sexobject he owns and that he can use whenever he wants, is a person that calls yourself your partner. The cause for a marriage is not to allow your partner to treat you as a worthless object, but to promise your partner in front of the world, that your partner is in your eyes the most respected human on earth.



Consent of sex means agreement. I dont know how you agree, when you are not even awake. I am with my partner for 14 years. And no we are not kind of past the "Have I lost every respect for my partner." phase. Simply think about how your partner would react, if he woke up and you would play with a banana in his anus. I think he would ask you, if you would have gotten complete crazy and nuts, and I thin you would agree that he had every right to ask that question. And when he does so, the same behaviour from his side shall be seen anything else?

Dear sweet Jesus, rape is when you say no or consent isn't given before, and the guy does it anyway. Is this going to turn into something like spanking is breaking kids bones and knocking their teeth out? Because if it is, I'm not even going to read your posts on this.

If I said to DH "I do not want to have sex with you anymore!" and I woke up and he was doing that then yes, it might be. But if two or three times a month we do it in the morning, and I wake up and he's doing that, then no it's not. I've done that to him, am I a rapist? I suppose I am. I rape my husband I knock my kids teeth out and beat them to a pulp when I spank them, I mean come on Schneekugel, get some perspective here ok?

Done with responding to you. Hysteria doesn't do a thing for me.

Olive I dont want to attack you in any way. Right in the moment I feel absolutly shocked. I dont want to attack you, I want to help you in any way.

And I have not written anywhere about broken bones or anything and knocked teeth. Also not in the Child abuse thread. If you dont like my oppinion its ok, but dont add fantasystuff to it and then blame me for being a lunatic by pointing the fantasystuff on me you yourself added. Talk to me about the stuff I wrote.

If you do it two or three times in the morning (Why do you do that if you dont want, please dont do it. Sex should be the wonderfullest thing that you should share with your partner, not a duty you have to fulfill or because elseway your partner is nagging like a child.) because you both agree to do so, this is absolutely fine. But in no way does this give your partner a excuse to use you as sexobject a fourth time in the month. I mean there is absolutly nothing bad about waking you, and telling you that he would like to have sex with you, so I simply dont understand why you are not worth that 1 minute to him, he needs to wake you up.

Anyway how long you are married, you are no ownage. May it be your husband or whoever, you are always and you will always ever be a free person and the only person with a right to choose when YOU want to have sex.

I dont want to talk too much, so you dont object on anything else: But what is wrong about this one sentence: YOU ARE THE ONLY ONE WITH THE RIGHT TO CHOOSE WHEN YOU WANT TO HAVE SEX.

There is absolutly nothing wrong about this sentence. And if there is nothing wrong about this sentence, there is no need to attack someone because of this sentence. I dont know what you want to discuss about broken bones and teeth I never mentioned, its simply that you are the only person ever in your whole life, no matter what, to decide when you want to have sex.

If you are too deep into it, simply imagine that one of your children would have a boyfriend, that would treat her in this way. Would you still think this was ok? Would you think that this boy would treat your daughter with the respect she deserves as a partner. And if not, why do you think you have less rights then your daughter. Marrying is not about giving others an excuse to treat you in a way, they would never treat others. Its about promising yourself to treat you much better, then everyone else.

And again, this is not about attacking. Its about trying in any way to give you shelter to defend yourself. I dont blame you in any way. I feel horrible for you. I dont know, you even excuse this kind of behaviour. Please dont do that. Dont tell yourself that its normal to be treated in this way. It is not. Even if you were used to be treaten this way in your whole life, its still dont make it normal. Please defend yourself. And dont accept it. You are worth more. You dont deserve to be treated in that way. And there is no need to treat you in that way. So you are married for a long time. Thats ok. But the one minute and asking you, you are always worth. Its not as if you would demand a horrible thing from your husband, its only one minute. You ARE worth that minute. Everyone is, there is no person on that earth, that wouldnt be worth that minute. Really.

Not any more it isn't! What you are describing is marital rape. In the not-so-distant past, and still in some countries, a wife was considered to have given her consent, once and for all time, when she got married, but certainly in the UK where I live, that is no longer the case.

Those laws have changed here in the U.S as well. It is not implied anytime, anyway, forever consent. Women are people and consent is needed each time.

I looked it up and you can check here to see the legality in various countries:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marital_ra ... al_offence

Last edited by ASDMommyASDKid on 10 May 2013, 8:02 am, edited 1 time in total.

Sorry, I didnt think that this was still allowed in any western country. Even in afghanistan they discussed around 2010 to forbid it, and when it comes to womens right, I thought there could be no country worse then that.

If in your marital relationship it is OK with both of you to wake each other in that manner, then in your relationship it is consensual. If it is consensual then that is fine. It does not mean everyone else has that same attitude. Marital rape is a real thing. Sex is not automatically consensual just due to marriage or the existence of a relationship. Everyone has a right to choose when, where and how he/she has sex, married or not.

I really really hate this part about being married. I am still an individual. I still have my feelings. I still need to have certain things in place for me emotionally before I go there. If I'm peeved at my husband or I feel he is out of touch with me emotionally or is acting selfishly, the last thing I want to do is have him touch me!! !! !! !!

Here is the official UK government definition of bullying:

https://www.gov.uk/bullying-at-school/b ... definition

I don't think it's particularly helpful to state that bullying needs to be a repeated act or acts, because you can suffer one standalone incident of bullying.

I would say bullying is about the psychology of the act and the intention behind it, as well as the nature of the act, rather than the frequency.

If a gay person suffered a homophobic attack, that is bullying (as well as a hate crime), even though it may only have happened once.

I also disagree that it's about degrees, and lesser incidences diminish what sufferers of more extreme examples of bullying have been through.

No-one is in someone else's head so cannot say whether a seemingly smaller incident affects someone less than someone (who may be a more confident, thick-skinned and well-supported person) who has been through something worse. It's subjective and a very personal experience. Obviously I do agree that some acts of bullying are more extreme than others, that goes without saying. Impact felt varies between victims, according to their psychological make-up, health, background and environment.

It would be like saying that someone who murdered someone by skinning them alive and draining their blood slowly was a worse murderer than someone who slipped some arsenic into someon's drink or shot them from twenty feet away. It's all murder.

Last edited by whirlingmind on 10 May 2013, 1:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.

In the UK rape within marriage is illegal. As it should be.

It says here, that 85% of rape victims are raped by someone they knew beforehand (and within that definition are husbands as well as others):

http://www.rapecrisis.org.uk/maritalrape2.php

This UK article discusses instances where even consensual sex can be classed as rape:

http://metro.co.uk/2013/04/24/sex-with- ... e-3665975/

The definition of rape is sexual penetration of the body in some manner with an object or part of the other person's body either by force, coercion, manipulation or rendering the person incapable (consensual sex is by definition someone that has the freedom and capacity to make that choice) etc. Someone does not have to have resisted physically for it to have been considered rape either. This is the UK definition I can't say what it is elsewhere.

Didn't mean to derail the thread from the bullying subject, but this matter has been discussed so I thought I'd add to it.

Last edited by whirlingmind on 10 May 2013, 1:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.

And yet one of those is going to get the maximum version of the varying possibilities in the sentencing. Where maybe the shooting wasn't even planned ahead of time, had some kind of extraordinary circumstances attached to it and might end up charged with second degree murder and get the bare minimum sentence. So even with something as serious and final as murder, the law will recognize degrees.

I do find it sort of ironic that people that by definition have social difficulties, and are very likely to do or say something rude, insensitive or likely to be interpreted as mean by others would want to take such a hard line on others one time unintentional rudeness, insensitivity, or meanness. If you follow the definition that even a single act of annoyance toward you can be called bullying of you by the other person, then every Aspie is a bully, because every Aspie has at some point misjudged the social situation and done something offensive. In fact, every person everywhere is a bully, because even NT's sometimes misjudge social situations.

Like they said on The Incredibles movie. The mom: Everyone is super in their own way, Dash. Dash: That's just a way of saying that no one is.

The idea being that if you fuzz the definition enough to include every minor thing then the word loses its original meaning entirely. It doesn't mean that the original thing is gone. It just means that we no longer have a way to talk about the original thing.