In the view of one psychiatric expert, Holly Ramona exhibited the telltale symptoms of sexual abuse. She dreamed repeatedly of a snake crawling up her vagina, refused gynecological examinations, and feared men with pointy canine teeth -- the kind of teeth that reminded her of her father, whom she had accused of sexually abusing her. She had an aversion to whole bananas, melted cheese and mayonnaise -- items, it was claimed, that reflected her trauma over having to perform oral sex on her father.
Last week, however, a jury in Napa, California, decided that the real culprit in Holly's trauma was...