Why is skepticism inappropriate on the SOAR mailing list?
A. The overreaction described in the previous answer is part of the reason. Over-reaction leads to flame wars and group pain. But it goes further. Every internet group is for the transmission of information. Most of that information is factual, intellectual. But there are newsgroups, including SOAR, whose primary intent is to fulfill the emotional needs of the Net community. Because its purpose is weighted more toward fulfilling emotional needs than the intellectual ones, in a milieu such as SOAR it is inappropriate to shout down or invalidate a survivor’s story. The risk of causing real hurt to a real survivor far outweighs the risk of allowing someone to “get away with telling lies for attention”. Skeptics are the one who need “hard evidence.” Unfortunately, in most cases of abuse, hard evidence is difficult or impossible to come by. Probably because our experience, as survivors, has made the likelihood of all forms of abuse far too credible, survivors appear to be gullible or even e
