+Note, however, that (unlike most other OO languages) Perl does not
+ensure or enforce encapsulation in any way. If you want objects to
+actually I<be> opaque you need to arrange for that yourself. This can
+be done in a variety of ways, including using L</"Inside-Out objects">
+or modules from CPAN.
+
+=head3 Objects Are Blessed; Variables Are Not
+
+When we bless something, we are not blessing the variable which
+contains a reference to that thing, nor are we blessing the reference
+that the variable stores; we are blessing the thing that the variable
+refers to (sometimes known as the I<referent>). This is best
+demonstrated with this code:
+
+ use Scalar::Util 'blessed';
+
+ my $foo = {};
+ my $bar = $foo;
+
+ bless $foo, 'Class';
+ print blessed( $bar ) // 'not blessed'; # prints "Class"
+
+ $bar = "some other value";
+ print blessed( $bar ) // 'not blessed'; # prints "not blessed"
+
+When we call C<bless> on a variable, we are actually blessing the
+underlying data structure that the variable refers to. We are not
+blessing the reference itself, nor the variable that contains that
+reference. That's why the second call to C<blessed( $bar )> returns
+false. At that point C<$bar> is no longer storing a reference to an
+object.
+
+You will sometimes see older books or documentation mention "blessing a
+reference" or describe an object as a "blessed reference", but this is
+incorrect. It isn't the reference that is blessed as an object; it's
+the thing the reference refers to (i.e. the referent).
+