Clarification: if you walk into the leather shop, with $300 burning a hole in your pocket, and see a nice jacket - and the guy behind the counter knows what he's doing (and gives enough of a shit) you will walk out of their, happy with your new jacket.

Saying there's no defense whatsoever was a bit of an exagerration; it's true that some people are more resistant than others (though not infinitely resistant), but even if you're weak you can always avoid the situations in the first place.

Having a blanket policy of "I don't do anything at the door" is highly effective.

It's sort of like a bullet; you can't resist it, but you can avoid it [assuming for the sake of analogy you ignore kevlar].

You know what? I will write a piece on defence, once I'm done with the other pieces in the series. Hopefully what I was trying to convey will be clearer at that point.

As for my purpose - 1) it's fun; this is stuff I've thought a lot about, and the community here is smart enough to understand it, 2) I get LW points and ego validation for writing it, and 3) the information's already out there, I figure it might as well be in the hands of the Good Guys.