What's Worse? Women Or Transgenders In Sport?

[queen.saints]

What's not a woman's vocation is belittling and insulting an ancient masculine activity like sports. What's not a woman's vocation is sitting around with other women and complaining- especially about their sons' masculine pursuits.

And the idea that boys get all the goods in life while girls get none is the kind of juvenile attitude that might possibly be excused in a child, but not in a grown woman.

I am not belittling ancient masculine activities, I am belittling modern ones. Modern sports do very little if nothing to help men become more masculine in the true sense of the word. Testosterone does not equal masculinity.

Also, I have never said that all of life is fun for boys and not for girls. This is a very particular area of life. Since you seem to have a handle on all the fun social activities for trad Catholic girls, what do your daughters do?

Sports are ancient masculine activities. Racing, wrestling, swimming, as well as various forms of throwing, batting, or kicking a ball have all been around for thousands of years. Just because they are still played in modern times doesn't change that.

Can anyone show me a time in any Catholic culture in which women played sports? 

Can anyone show you a time in any Catholic culture in which men played organised sports for any other reason than to develop skills in battle.  And I don't mean boys kicking balls around in the street, but fully organised sport as an end in itself.

Modern sport is pagan.  And Catholic girls are supposed to cheer them on and support them in what, exactly? The quest for prizes, adulation and bodily prowess. 

What's not a woman's vocation is belittling and insulting an ancient masculine activity like sports. What's not a woman's vocation is sitting around with other women and complaining- especially about their sons' masculine pursuits.

And the idea that boys get all the goods in life while girls get none is the kind of juvenile attitude that might possibly be excused in a child, but not in a grown woman.

Sport as training for combat is an ancient masculine activity. 

Sport as an end in itself with the aim of gaining applause, prizes and admiration is little more than pagan body worship.

Is it masculine to spend countless hours training the body to excel on the sports field?

Sports have been played by men for all of known history, including in all Catholic nations of the world. It's not our place, in 2019, to judge whether men's motives are pure enough when they engage in the same activities in which men have always engaged.

It's also not our place to decide which aspects of human life are superfluous and which are necessary. Hurling, for instance, has been played in Ireland for at least 4,000 years. Apparently all the men who have played it for millennia disagree with your idea that they are wasting their time.

Ok, we know that men have played sports for all of known history. No one is debating that. It is simply that at some point, sports became recreational and was no longer used for developing soldiers/warriors. It is not helpful for a mans vocation to play organized sports. It has nothing to do with pure motives, it is about what ought to be encouraged.

Apparently that point was about 4,000 years ago in Ireland, because hurling is well documented and has always been recreational. So far no evidence has been brought forward by you or anyone else that sports were ever anything but recreational.  During all that time, men did believe that playing sports was necessary for developing masculinity. You think you know better, yet have no evidence or historical backing to your assertion.

[Arvinger]

I have no problem with women playing competitive sports (maybe with exception of fighting sports like boxing, MMA, etc., which I find distasteful in general), in fact I enjoy some of them very much - I watched last two (2015, 2019) Women's World Cup tournaments in football (actual football, which you call soccer, not American football ), as well as some youth World Cup and Euro tournaments, and one can see a steady progress being made by female football players in terms of skills and tactics. Not every woman has a vocation to motherhood and family life, and some of them have a God-given talent in sport - if they can make a living of that, I don't see a problem with that. The number of women who have enough talent to make living of participation in professional sports is a tiny percentage of female population, so I don't think it would affect social or demographic patterns in a Catholic country in any significant way. Majority of women would still be wives and mothers.

An argument was made in this thread that women playing professional sports lose capacity to have children. I don't think it is an issue, since a woman who decides to make a living of professional sports (or any kind of professional career, for that matter) should choose between career and motherhood anyway, since the two are largely mutually exclusive. I remember Bishop Sanborn saying in one of his interviews that he has no problem with women having full time careers (I think he gave an example of woman being a nuclear scientist) as long as they give up on motherhood and family, since it is impossible be a good mother and wife, and have a full-time career at the same time - you have to choose.

Can anyone show me a time in any Catholic culture in which women played sports?  If you cannot use logic to figure out why this is bad, then is not 1,000+ years of evidence from every Catholic nation enough to rest the case?

That is not a good argument, since while there is certainly a long tradition of sports in history of Europe, modern full-time professional sport is a relatively new phenomenon which does not have much of a parallel in history.   

[Graham]

Sports are all about pride and self-image. I agree with Awkward, if men really want to make sure they are super masculine and pump their bodies with testosterone, they should be clearing a few acres of land, stacking a rick of wood a day, or walking/hiking through nature.

Girls should be able to play sports because it's unfair, but sports are evil and men should only be able to chop wood? Make up your mind

I never said girls should be able to play sports. I said there was a not a fun, social equivalent for trad girls. It has nothing to do with sports.

It's true you didnt spell that out. If your problem is theres no exact equivalent for the girls, one of the natural implications is that girls should have access to this outlet too. You never ruled out that implication

I also never said sports are evil. I just said that they used to serve a very specific purpose in society, and now they don't. Their usefulness is gone, and they are purely for recreation now. You need to read my comments a little more thoroughly, or don't bother responding.

Playing sports still serves the exact same purpose it always did, promoting teamwork, health and athleticism, strategy, and competitiveness, as well as community spirit. I guess the big difference is that it used to support gender roles, and now it doesnt to the same degree

[Maximilian]

I watched last two (2015, 2019) Women's World Cup tournaments in football as well as some youth World Cup and Euro tournaments, and one can see a steady progress being made by female football players in terms of skills and tactics.

Also "steady progress" in the depiction and encouragement of unnatural lifestyles. A large and growing percentage of these top female athletes are not heterosexual. Nothing could better prove the point made in posts above about how female competitive athletics are leading to the inability to reproduce the next generation.

Not every woman has a vocation to motherhood and family life, and some of them have a God-given talent in sport -

Really? This sounds like feminist propaganda, rather than a "gift from God."

if they can make a living of that, I don't see a problem with that.

But females can't make a living from sports. That's one of the reasons why Title IX is so evil. Men's sports are multi-billion dollar industries. Colleges preparing men to enter those industries is appropriate. Female professional sports are virtually an oxymoron, with a few small exceptions that are just a rounding error in comparison to men's sports.

Female tennis. Ok, that's real.

Female golf. Used to be real, but now in steep decline. Dominated by ugly, muscular Koreans from the country that has the world's lowest birth rate.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/30/sports/hank-haney-racist-sexist.html

"Haney predicted during his show that "a Korean" would win and said that he couldn't name six players on the tour but that he would get "a bunch of them right" if he guessed "Lee" and didn't have to produce any first names."

After Haney made those comments, guess who won the tournament? Someone named "Lee6" -- yes, just as Haney predicted, there were so many Lee's in the tournament that they put a 6 after her name.

WNBA. Socialist league depending entirely on welfare from the NBA. So gay that they won't pass you the ball if you're straight.

https://nypost.com/2017/02/21/retired-wnba-star-i-was-tormented-for-not-being-gay/

Straight WNBA star: Lesbian culture broke my spirit
There is a "very, very harmful" culture running throughout the WNBA, she says, which saw her get bullied during her eight-year career because she is heterosexual.

Wiggins, who last played in the league in 2015, said she retired prematurely to leave a league that she estimated — wildly — is 98 percent lesbian, and which is played in such isolation that it weighs on the people on the court.

"It wasn't like my dreams came true in the WNBA. It was quite the opposite," Wiggins said in an extensive San Diego Tribune story published Monday. "... I wanted to play two more seasons of WNBA, but the experience didn't lend itself to my mental state. It was a depressing state in the WNBA. It's not watched. Our value is diminished. It can be quite hard. I didn't like the culture inside the WNBA, and without revealing too much, it was toxic for me. ... My spirit was being broken."

The 30-year-old couldn't take it anymore — being harassed for being straight and fighting for attention in a league that is starved.

"Me being heterosexual and straight, and being vocal in my identity as a straight woman was huge," Wiggins said. "I would say 98 percent of the women in the WNBA are gay women. It was a conformist type of place. There was a whole different set of rules they [the other players] could apply."

Wiggins, who played for the Lynx, Shock, Sparks and Liberty, claimed the issues revolve around the lack of attention the league has garnered as the WNBA struggles with ticket sales and TV ratings. "There was a lot of jealousy and competition, and we're all fighting for crumbs," Wiggins said. "The way I looked, the way I played – those things contributed to the tension.

"People were deliberately trying to hurt me all of the time. I had never been called the B-word so many times in my life than I was in my rookie season. I'd never been thrown to the ground so much. The message was: 'We want you to know we don't like you.' "

The number of women who have enough talent to make living of participation in professional sports is a tiny percentage of female population, so I don't think it would affect social or demographic patterns in a Catholic country in any significant way. Majority of women would still be wives and mothers.

This is entirely wrong and demonstrates a misunderstanding of sports. In order to have a professional league of any sorts, you need to have a feeder system with millions of kids. When you see male baseball players or football players on TV, they are the ultimate result of a system that starts with millions of 10-year old boys playing little league baseball and touch football.

In order to have female professional sports leagues, all the girls in the country need to go out and play sports. Not all of them become professional, but all of them are exposed to competitive sports at an impressionable age. That's the goal of our current propaganda campaign, and it is being achieved.

[Vetus Ordo]

I watched last two (2015, 2019) Women's World Cup tournaments in football (actual football, which you call soccer, not American football ), as well as some youth World Cup and Euro tournaments, and one can see a steady progress being made by female football players in terms of skills and tactics.

While I agree with you that there has been some noticeable progress made by female athletes in the last decade, female football as a whole is an irrelevant sport that has been pushed down everyone's throats as a political stance of FIFA.

Still, it's a better compromise than an abhorrent mixed-gender football.

[Arvinger]

Also "steady progress" in the depiction and encouragement of unnatural lifestyles. A large and growing percentage of these top female athletes are not heterosexual. Nothing could better prove the point made in posts above about how female competitive athletics are leading to the inability to reproduce the next generation.

Do you have any statistics demonstrating that the percentage of lesbians among women doing professional sports in general is higher than the average in female population, and if so, that corelation = causation in that case? Even if this were the case, the current celebration of lesbianism and other sexual abominations says more about the culture that permits it rather than the issue of sports itself (just like it is a well-known fact that there are homosexuals among opera singers does not say anyting about the value of opera music itself). 

Really? This sounds like feminist propaganda, rather than a "gift from God."

It is objectively true than not every woman has vocation for motherhood. It is also objectively true that some women have great talent for particular sports. As much as I hate feminism, I don't see anything controversial here.

But females can't make a living from sports. That's one of the reasons why Title IX is so evil. Men's sports are multi-billion dollar industries. Colleges preparing men to enter those industries is appropriate. Female professional sports are virtually an oxymoron, with a few small exceptions that are just a rounding error in comparison to men's sports.

Most of them can't, that exactly what I wrote and why I don't see a problem with it - not many women are good enough in sports to make a living of it. As you admit, in tennis women can make a living of it, it is also increasingly happening in football (the best female football leagues in the West are professional, actually the female US football team - current world champions - brings bigger revenue to the United States Soccer Federation than men's team, and female football in general becomes increasingly more popular in Europe), it is also the case in sports like athletics and figure skating. Sure, only the few best will be able to do that for living, but that is the point - let the tiny minority of women who have real talent and ability to make a living of it pursue it, and majority of others will be wives and mothers.

This is entirely wrong and demonstrates a misunderstanding of sports. In order to have a professional league of any sorts, you need to have a feeder system with millions of kids. When you see male baseball players or football players on TV, they are the ultimate result of a system that starts with millions of 10-year old boys playing little league baseball and touch football.

In order to have female professional sports leagues, all the girls in the country need to go out and play sports. Not all of them become professional, but all of them are exposed to competitive sports at an impressionable age. That's the goal of our current propaganda campaign, and it is being achieved.

There is no misunderstanding of sports on my part and I am very well-aware of what you wrote above. It is perfectly consistent with what I wrote in my previous post - the point is that only the best, the ones with real talent will make it through the youth systems and achieve professional status. 99% of girls participating in youth competitions, school leagues etc. will not, and will pursue sports only recreationally for certain time in their youth - and recreational sports are fine and doing them is benefitial to one's health. I don't see why in proper Catholic order there should be no place for participation of girls in healthy dose of physical activity and sports under appropriate supervision as part of their proper physical development. The fact that our culture frames the issue in terms of feminism does not negate that - everything can be misused by Godless people.

[Sempronius]

These last two paragraphs from Max are golden:

In order to have a professional league of any sorts, you need to have a feeder system with millions of kids. When you see male baseball players or football players on TV, they are the ultimate result of a system that starts with millions of 10-year old boys playing little league baseball and touch football.

In order to have female professional sports leagues, all the girls in the country need to go out and play sports. Not all of them become professional, but all of them are exposed to competitive sports at an impressionable age. That's the goal of our current propaganda campaign, and it is being achieved.

[bigbadtrad]

It is well known that lesbianism is very high in pro sports:
https://www.marca.com/en/more-sports/2017/02/23/58af128ce2704eca2b8b45ad.html

I've played in high level sports as a younger man, it was true 25 years ago when they were in the closet, it's open season now.

The one thing no one can deny is the dress a woman wears when playing and especially for practice is basically underwear in spandex/lycra. No one in their right mind would allow their daughter to play high level sports without seeing them dress like a prostitute.

You can't make a woman develop the mindset of a man without developing an aggressiveness that destroys a woman. If you don't believe me look at any pro athlete and tell me you would want to marry that person for their personality and as a partner for Our Lord into Heaven.

[Arvinger]

You can't make a woman develop the mindset of a man without developing an aggressiveness that destroys a woman. If you don't believe me look at any pro athlete and tell me you would want to marry that person for their personality and as a partner for Our Lord into Heaven.

The point is that ideally women in professional sports (or any sort of full-time professional career) should make a choice: family or career, because the two can't go together (there is no way she can be a good Catholic wife and mother while constantly travelling around the world for living). If a woman makes such a choice, than the question how suitable she is for marriage or motherhood is sort of moot.

I found a quote from Bishop Sanborn which I mentioned before.

"For women I would say this. Are you going to get married or are you going to pursue a career? It's either/or. Being married and a worldly business career do not go together. If you don't agree with that, again I have nothing further to say. If you want to pursue some sort of elaborate career, decide you are not going to get married and then do whatever you want as far as career. If you want to become a nuclear scientist or something like that—sure, she can do that. I have no objection that she does that. It's just that I think that to say, "Well, I'm going to be a nuclear scientist and then I'll get married when I'm 35, and then have a child or two, and we'll give the child over to daycare, and my husband and I will work different jobs, or my husband will stay home to cook and clean and I will have my career." Then she has a completely twisted idea of what her role is."

https://www.truerestoration.org/interview-with-bishop-donald-sanborn-on-cultural-issues-march-2009/

So, His Excellency acknowledges that specific women (probably a small minority) can have gifts which they might legitimately pursue as a career for living, while giving up on family and children. In principle I don't see why it should not extend to sports if a woman has that sort of a gift.

[Maximilian]

It is well known that lesbianism is very high in pro sports:
https://www.marca.com/en/more-sports/2017/02/23/58af128ce2704eca2b8b45ad.html

I've played in high level sports as a younger man, it was true 25 years ago when they were in the closet, it's open season now.

https://www.theguardian.com/observer/osm/story/0,,482447,00.html
Sunday 6 May 2001
The Observer

Palm Springs, California, springtime.
There is a golf tournament in town and thousands of women have arrived, but not to watch the sport. Instead they are here for some other sport - one long party, with nudity, girl-on-girl action and go-go dancers simulating sex on stage. Much to the chagrin of the tournament's organiser, the LPGA, and its sponsor Nabisco, this elite event has become a sapphic debauch writ large, as lesbians from all over America converge in the desert for the Dinah Shore Classic.

Eleven years ago, Sandy Sachs and Robin Gans, owners of the Los Angeles lesbian club Girl Bar, came to the tournament, were bored rigid, and saw an opportunity. They started promoting hotel packages, music clubs and pool parties during the golf weekend, which initially attracted sports fans looking for something to do once the golf was through mid-afternoon, and women who just wanted to be around other women in a convivial atmosphere. Over the past few years, due largely to their efforts, the weekend has turned into a lesbian bacchanal where any self-respecting US dyke goes to get a tan, get a girlfriend and get laid. Oh, and maybe watch some golf.

The first time they went to Palm Springs, Sachs and Gans - partners in business and in life - actually watched some golf. 'That was so boring,' says Sachs, grimacing at the memory. 'We only went because we knew one of the players, who was then the girlfriend of one of my exes. It was exhausting, all that walking, walking, walking in the heat. We looked at each other and said, "Never again".' Instead they devoted themselves to providing more interesting but equally vigorous forms of entertainment and the partying now attracts more lesbians than the golf itself. In fact, the joke has it that some of their clients can spend the entire weekend in blissful ignorance that there is a golf tournament at all.

The LPGA, for its part, appears to be equally unaware. 'Oh there's a party scene here?' says an LPGA spokeswoman. 'We really wouldn't know.' Funny that, because half your golfers are rumoured to show up there. But they needn't worry about being recognised, as Sachs and Gans reckon that only about five per cent of their clientele actually go to the golf. 'Even if a top player walked in -and we've had winners of the Dinah Shore at the Girl Bar - our girls wouldn't recognise them.'

At the golf, played a few miles down the road from Palm Springs at the Mission Hills club in Rancho Mirage, it's soon clear that there are only two types of fan - local wrinklies (even the radio network calls itself The Oldies Station) - and lesbians. The oldies come in twos, the lesbians in fours and sixes and more. My guestimate is that 60 per cent of the crowd are lesbians.

It's hard to tell the lesbian fans apart from the players, as they are decked out in the same outfits - tailored shorts and polo shirts, with the more butch gals turning their collars up. It's really only a flattering look for the tall and slim, and the fans, like the players, come in all shapes and sizes. No wonder gay men don't play golf.

The older fans and the tournament marshals, many of whom have been volunteering at the tournament since it began, are fiercely loyal to the memory of Dinah Shore, who died in 1994, and are very unhappy that Nabisco took her name off the event's title last year. 'As far as I'm concerned,' said one marshal, 'it has always been the Dinah Shore tournament and always will. That woman is revered in these parts.' I tell him rumour has it that Nabisco took her name off because the tournament had become synonymous with lesbians. 'Dinah Shore wasn't a lesbian!' he says, laughing. 'And it's not just lesbians here, lots of locals come too.'

The LPGA, or more particularly Nabisco, major sponsors of this $1.5million event, would beg to differ. Despite a Nabisco declaration at the media launch of the tournament that they wish 'to make it more relevant' (whatever that may mean), mention the L-word and people suddenly go deaf, or even escort you off the premises. At a previous tournament a journalist was asked to leave the press area when she made the mistake of asking some of the players if they were gay. She was accused of 'bothering' them.

When I asked Nabisco's press representative about lesbians in the sport, the atmosphere got more and more frosty and the answers more and more terse.

Are there lesbians in the LPGA?

'That is not something we would like to comment on.'

Do a lot of lesbians follow the tour?

'No comment.'

Are there...?

'Goodbye.'

In fact, over its 50-year history, the LPGA has always been associated with gay women, far more than any other sport, which probably has as much to do with its ridiculous closetedness as with the facts - the less you say about it, the more it's assumed. So what about the LPGA's attempts to downplay or even deny there are lesbians in the sport? 'I find it comical, because everyone knows,' says Haines.

Well not everyone. I ask the LPGA spokeswoman about lesbians on the tour. 'We're all about golf and nothing else matters. Are there...' she stutters over the next word... 'gays on the LPGA tour? I don't know. Do I care? No. Do I want to know? No. And the same way with our fans.' She then goes on to trash what fans they do have by saying, apropos of nothing I ask: 'If you're a drunk fan and obnoxious you'll be removed. But more for your behaviour on the course.' More? Surely she means only, and how do we make that leap from lesbian to lout?

Brown is also the liaison officer for the gay and lesbian community, although is herself not a lesbian. 'I don't like golf,' she quips, 'which is how folks know I'm not gay. But because of our long association with Hollywood - in fact many retirees here were in the film, television or music industries - Palm Springs has always been a safe and welcoming environment for gay men and women, whether they are visiting or live here.'

Thankfully, too, not all women's sport is as set as the LPGA on denying where its following lies. The LA Sparks, part of the recently resurgent Women's National Basketball Association, have asked Sandy Sachs and Robin Gans to promote ticket sales at Girl Bar. 'It's groundbreaking and they're a little nervous,' says Sachs. 'But they realise who their market is and are pursuing it, as opposed to saying, "There are no lesbians in basketball".' Gans adds: 'You just have to look at the stands at the Staples Centre [where the Sparks play] to realise that it's 70 per cent lesbians. It's like going to Girl Bar on a Friday night.'

Basketball is following tennis's lead in allowing the public's perceptions of the sport to catch up with reality. Where once the merest hint of dykery would have the media and fans agog because the sport was so closeted, tennis players now talk openly about their sexuality - French player Amélie Mauresmo gave a front-page feature to the respected culture magazine Paris Match last year, posing for pictures with her long-term girlfriend - and the issue has become less interesting, less naughty. In fact only two of the top 20 tennis pros are lesbian - in other words, roughly the national average - and who cares any more?

And the golf? Sweden's Annika Sorenstam wins. Like they care.

[bigbadtrad]

Arvinger I think Bishop Sanborn is deeply mistaken and by a country mile. Unless you are going to dedicate your life as a single person to God you will struggle being a human with a fallen nature. That goes for men and especially for women who get a career because time is more compounded to start a family life with a definite stopping point.

Let's use the example of a female nuclear scientist as that's his example. Will she crave companionship? Will she desire kids someday? Is she going to date men while trying to focus on her career?

If "yes" the odds of her staying chaste in a dating environment are slim. But let's go further.

What if she wants kids at around 30-35 after she sees the emptiness that a career brings. How many good guys will want to marry a career girl? Few if any.

Unless you're under 30 and have false romantic beliefs about life you realize how easy it is to lose your way, that you aren't as strong as you think and the lack of foresight is a day late and a dollar short for most people. And for a woman that's even worse as she has a timer  to have her own family and the ticking sound gets mighty loud.

Will this nuclear scientist who may discover she wants a family be mentally stable to raise one without feeling she's wasting her life? As much as she feels the emptiness of her job she also feels the weight of being important now that she's gone down that road. It takes a special person to walk away from that without constant regret.

Even if you don't feel called to get married today human nature gets it's way. Loneliness is a real problem and intimacy is a requirement in life. Either we are intimate with the Divine through the spirit or intimate in the flesh with people. Nature abhors a vacuum and no career will solve that.

[dellery]

By "sports" are we talking about professional sports or playing sports for recreation? It's hard to see why anybody should get payed to play a game without feeling shame or embarrassment. Females are intended to be at home with children and are generally happier when they are, this most of us can agree on.
The idea that a girl is going to start developing male traits and male virtues because she's playing a recreational sport with other girls seems to be a stretch.
What a girls gets out of playing a sport will not be the same as what a boy does.

[diaduit]

It is well known that lesbianism is very high in pro sports:
https://www.marca.com/en/more-sports/2017/02/23/58af128ce2704eca2b8b45ad.html

I've played in high level sports as a younger man, it was true 25 years ago when they were in the closet, it's open season now.

The one thing no one can deny is the dress a woman wears when playing and especially for practice is basically underwear in spandex/lycra. No one in their right mind would allow their daughter to play high level sports without seeing them dress like a prostitute.

You can't make a woman develop the mindset of a man without developing an aggressiveness that destroys a woman. If you don't believe me look at any pro athlete and tell me you would want to marry that person for their personality and as a partner for Our Lord into Heaven.

I was watching the World Athletic Championships a couple of weeks ago ( at least I think it was) just for laughs when the walking race was on.  Looking at human ducks waggling so fast was better than any comedy.  But it really annoyed me that the female athletes wear knickers and a bra top while competing but the men wear loose shorts and vest top......so it can't be for aerodynamics or some other bs reason.
And I don't need a doctorate research team to spot the dick van dykes in female sport.....its a collection of all that's ugly

[Aeternitus]

The following are some excerpts from what I think is an excellent book: What is True Education by Fr Edward Leen (C.S.Sp. M.A., D.D. Litt), written in 1943, the year before he died.   

Thanks for posting the excellent excerpt and also for the information re Fr. Edward Leen whom I was not previously aware of.

Do you know whether his books are still available in Ireland?

Yes, it is an excellent read.  Hardback editions are only available from second-hand sources, as far as I am aware, and can vary significantly in price.   I had a hardback edition years ago but have either misplaced it or given it away. I bought the paperback edition online from here: http://www.lulu.com/shop/father-edward-leen/what-is-true-education/paperback/product-6173135.html. 

I have read quite a few of his books and he is one of my favourite authors.  The paperback reprint of Why the Cross I also purchased online, but it too was some time ago and I can't quite remember where.   

[Kreuzritter]

Everything has to have a "purpose" with Stoics and their spiritual successors. Nothing can ever be just for the enjoyment of the thing itself. What's the purpose of a purpose again?