Soft bullying

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That's a contradiction in terms while people are attacked for what they are, or appear to be.
Also - wrong sex!

I wasn't talking about you. Or maybe you're joking, I'm not sure.

When I was in high school one of the jocks who picked on me by calling me gay hit on me one day when his buddies were not around and when I turned him down he became even meaner towards me. I have posted about several times. I did not bother telling anyone at school because I did not think anyone would believe me. Odds are the one guy who picking on you the most for being gay evev though you are not gay is probably a closet queen.

When someone says the Shakespeare quote "The lady doth protest too much, methinks" we mean that the lady objects so much as to lose credibility. In the play "Hamlet" Gertrude says that Player Queen affirms so much as to lose credibility. Her protests are too elaborate, too artful, too insistent.

so it is not directed towards a lady or a man, it is a quote from Shakespeare that means that if someone harps on it all the time, they are more involved in the subject than just having an objection to it.

exactly!

I think often it's more likely to simply be typical straight homophobia. I mean, sure, there's some kind of schadenfreude over the idea that gay people are their own worst enemies, but I think this stereotype is itself kind of homophobic, as it sort of paints gay people as the bad guys and doesn't question that culturally, being gay is often viewed in a hostile manner.

Like, if a gay boy tries to present himself as straight and bullies feminine boys to prove his straight manhood, what puts him there? Why does he do that? Why does he think he needs to do that? He's a problem as a bully, but he's not the problem.

There was a boy in my 7th grade homeroom who was always calling me "slow" "stupid" or "loser". The homeroom teacher and my family were both aware of this abuse but decided it would be better to just not get involve and let the situation resolve itself.

Some resolve. It's now been almost 14 years later and I've never been able to escape the belief that I really am slow and stupid (as my grades can show you). Anyone can easily absorbed such hurtful comments that are directed at them. The very idea that people are capable of ignoring it is more ridiculous than the idea that it's better for teachers and parents to do nothing about it.

Ah. Hmm, it seemed clear when I wrote it but not now.
I'm not sure of very much at all at the moment. Still waiting for my first coffee fix to kick in.

Yep, pretty likely.

Yes, I knew - but the literal me fired off a response anyway.
Good explanation though. I knew it was from Shakespeare but not much beyond that.

Dunno - a lot of "soft bullying" is probably not meant to hurt, but to see whether you can cope with the mild conflict and clumsiness that is usually part of a close group - it could be your entrance exam for membership of the Inner Circle. If you can just shake it off, or counter with a suitable insult, and show that it hasn't phased you, they'll often like you better for it.

Of course a lot of it is simply malice, and it's hard to know the difference. Generally the "benign" form of teasing is characterised by the ludicrously impossible nature of the accusation, although I've known ineptitude both ways - attempts at benign teasing can sometimes accidentally touch a nerve, and attempts to hurt can sometimes be so badly thought out that they can be mistaken for affection.