George Rousseau, similarly, cites the pamphlet as part of a body of 1740s "sodomy" literature so wide-ranging as to suggest that the term's meaning might have been mutable, broad, and vague. He argues specifically that, in the 1740s, the term had a strong connotation of an imported vice; it was often used in the 1740s to connote suspicion against foreigners. The pamphlet's text, on page 50, includes the strident claim "Damn'd Fashion! Imported from Italy amid'st a Train of other unnatural Vices. Have we not Sins enough of our own, but we must eke 'em out with those of Foreign Nations, to fill up the Cup of our Abominations, and make us yet more ripe for Divine Vengeance?" The plausibility of the theory that "sodomy", however understood, was particularly prevalent in Italy is difficult to assess, though Trevor Dean notes that, earlier, seventeenth-century Italy had undergone increasingly vigorous efforts to monitor and regulate sexual activity.
