After writing fantasties about her neighbors doesn't work, Tao takes the advice of her uncle and starts reaching for first-hand experience to draw on, turning to the macho magazine photographer and writer, Young Stallion.
According to Ian Lumsden, traditional Spanish machismo and the Catholic Church have disdained effeminate and sexually passive males for centuries.
The production style resembled the New York underground sound inspired by the Native Tongues, and the lyrics of Makiza lacked the overwhelming "machismo" and violence of average rap.
"Marianismo" is an aspect of the female gender role in the machismo of Hispanic American folk culture.
New York Times reviewer Raymond Sokolov called the book "an oddly unsettling satire of American machismo".