Yes, Mal does bully her, and as everyone else on the ship shows, it's wrong. Mal is clearly in the wrong for thinking that's all she is. Especially since the show goes on to make a huge distinction about what she does.
That's not why he does it. Consider this exchange, from "Shindig":
Inara: You have a strange sense of nobility, Captain. You'll lay a man out for implying I'm a whore, but you keep calling me one to my face.
Mal: I might not show respect to your job, but he didn't respect
you. That's the difference.
See, Mal doesn't trash-talk Inara about being a whore because he "thinks that's all she is". He does it because he knows there's more to her than that, and he believes she's better than her job. (And of course he's in love with her, so we can assume her sleeping with other men for a living really grinds his gears.)
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