Sexual bullying: addressing the gap between bullying and dating violence.

Millions of youth in the United States are involved in some aspects of bullying behavior. Increasing rates of youth violence, including horrific violent school events, have brought national attention upon the phenomenon. Bullying is a broad construct that covers a wide variety of behaviors from name calling to physical abuse, and it is associated with serious negative health outcomes. Sexual bullying appears to be antecedent to more severe forms of relationship violence, and it is proposed as a conceptual link between bullying and more advanced forms of sexualized violence, such as teen dating violence and adult forms of intimate partner violence.