Mandem Hypermasculinity & Manipulation: What Black Gay Men Need to Know

A Calculated Exploitation of Queer Vulnerability

Manipulation can happen in any relationship. However, for many Black gay men in the UK or US—particularly in high-pressure environments like London, New York City or Los Angeles—this form of psychological exploitation can be harder to spot.

The compounded effects of minority stress, internal community friction, desirability pressures, and limited support systems can heighten distress and burnout for Black gay men. Over time, many Black LGBTQ+ individuals increasingly rely on intimate relationships as a primary source of stability, belonging, and emotional relief.

This article is for educational purposes only and does not offer a clinical diagnosis or legal advice. It is intended to help you recognise harmful patterns that can emerge in gay relationships and queer spaces. A guidance section at the end offers practical strategies to help you stay grounded and prioritise your safety at all times.

What Is Manipulation?

Manipulation is an influence that undermines one’s autonomy. Manipulators use six common tactics to shape your choices, so you make decisions that serve their goals without your freely given, informed consent.

Manipulation tends to involve one or more of these elements:

1. Hidden agenda: they want an outcome but won’t state it honestly.
2. Information control: selective truth, lies, omissions, moving things off-record.
3. Emotional leverage: using guilt, fear, shame, pity, or insecurity as a lever.
4. Pressure and urgency: forcing decisions before you can think, verify, or consult others.
5. Punishment for boundaries: sulking, silent treatment, threats, smear attempts, withdrawal of affection/support.
6. Dependency engineering: isolating you or making you reliant—financially, socially, emotionally, or practically.

Understanding the Mechanics of Emotional Manipulation

Emotional manipulation is rarely loud or obvious. It often operates through subtle, calculated behaviours that gradually undermine autonomy, confidence, and a person’s sense of reality.

Recognising these patterns early can help you identify red flags and prioritise your mental and emotional safety.

6 Elements of Manipulation That Show Up as Signs

Manipulation has a structure. To recognise it safely, it helps to understand both how the elements are applied (the mechanism) and what they look like when active in practice (the evidence).

Below are the six core elements that commonly underpin manipulative dynamics, particularly in emotionally abusive relationships. When these elements recur in a relationship, they serve as clear signs that manipulation is taking place.

You do not need to experience all six elements for manipulation to be occurring—even one or two, repeated over time, is enough to warrant concern.

1. Hidden Agenda

Manipulators rarely state their true goal, because transparency gives you the power to say “no.” Instead, they present a surface‑level request that appears reasonable, while their actual objective remains concealed.

• How it works: They may ask for “help” with a small financial issue, while the real aim is to test your willingness to provide ongoing or unlimited support.
• The trap: You believe you are agreeing to X, while they are quietly steering you toward Y. By the time the full cost becomes clear, you are already invested.

2. Information Control

Manipulators understand a simple psychological logic: control the narrative, and you control the person. This tactic relies on selective truth‑telling, strategic omissions, gaslighting when doubts are raised^[1], or shifting conversations “off record” to avoid accountability or leave no evidence.

• How it works: They may share a partial story about an ex or a “love they ruined” to elicit sympathy, subtly diverting attention from their own harmful behaviour. In other cases, they may send carefully crafted messages that reflect the persona or “brand” they intend to adopt.
• The trap: You are unable to make informed decisions because your understanding of the situation—and of the person—is incomplete or distorted.

3. Emotional Leverage

Manipulators use emotional leverage to turn your own feelings—guilt, fear, shame, kindness, pity, or insecurity—into tools of control. They are often highly attuned to emotional vulnerabilities and know how to activate them at moments of resistance.

For Safety: Be Cautious of “My Only One” Stories

Statements that frame you as uniquely chosen or the special one can feel intimate, but in manipulative dynamics, this is called “love bombing” or “grooming”. They are tactics designed to lower your guard and increase emotional obligation.

Common examples seen in Black gay interactions include:

• “You’re the only one I do this with.”
• “You’re the only one I’ve ever allowed this.”
• “You’re the only one who understands me.”
• “Out of all of them, it’s you I have a special connection with.”

Once you accept the role of “the only one,” it becomes harder to question behaviour, enforce boundaries, or walk away—because doing so risks losing the identity you’ve been given.

4. Pressure and Urgency

Manipulation thrives on speed. Pauses allow for reflection, fact‑checking, and outside perspective—so manipulators manufacture urgency to bypass critical thinking.

• How it works: Manipulators manufacture urgency through phrases like “I need an answer right now” or “Let’s just do it,” as well as recurring stories about imminent departures—such as “I’m travelling for three months.” These narratives are designed to create anticipated scarcity, making delay feel risky, and compliance feel necessary.

• The trap: You end up making long‑term decisions in response to short‑term, often exaggerated or fabricated crises—before you’ve had time to reflect, verify, or seek perspective.

5. Punishment for Boundaries

Healthy relationships respect boundaries. Manipulative ones punish them. Over time, this creates a punishment–reward cycle that conditions you to prioritise their comfort over your own safety.

• How it works: When you say no—such as refusing to lend money—they respond with withdrawal, anger, silent treatment, ghosting or subtle threats to your reputation.
• The trap: Boundaries begin to feel “too costly,” so you stop asserting them to avoid retaliation.

6. Dependency Engineering

A common end goal of manipulation is to reduce your options by making you dependent—emotionally, socially, or financially.

• How it works: They may isolate you from friends, entangle finances, or erode your confidence until independence feels risky or impossible.
• The trap: Even when you recognise the harm, leaving feels unsafe because your support systems have been systematically weakened.

Dependency: A Manipulator’s Endgame

The most effective outcome of structured manipulation is full reliance. Once dependency is established, control no longer needs to be enforced—it is maintained automatically.

How it works: The manipulative individual isolates you from friends, chosen family, or previous partners by creating rifts, entangling finances, or gradually eroding your confidence—until independence begins to feel risky or impossible.

This dynamic—where secrecy, dependency, and emotional withholding overlap—reflects a recognised pattern in controlling relationships. Sometimes described as psychological entrapment, it occurs when a relationship gradually replaces a person’s “outside world,” shrinking support networks and making autonomy feel costly.

For some Black gay men navigating modern DL partnerships, this pattern can feel especially familiar. DL “posers” often use secrecy to isolate partners from the outside world. When a relationship can’t be shared openly, access to friends, advice, and an external perspective weakens, deepening reliance on the DL partner for connection and validation. In this dynamic, power quietly shifts toward the DL partner, and the imbalance is harder to recognise.

Love Bombing: A Manipulator’s Accelerator

Healthy intimacy grows through consistency, transparency, and mutual choice—not through emotional shortcuts that create pressure to accommodate or excuse harm.

Manipulative individuals often use flattery and “my only one” stories—such as “you’re the only one who understands me” or “we have a unique connection”—to rapidly lower a person’s guard. This tactic, commonly referred to as love bombing or grooming, creates a sense of obligation by making the recipient feel chosen, indebted, and emotionally invested. Over time, this increases compliance and tolerance for behaviour that would otherwise raise concern.

The first stage of this dynamic is the creation of a false bond. By fostering an intense, immediate “us against the world” narrative, the manipulator manufactures an illusion of deep intimacy. The immediate effect is lowered defences: the person feels privileged to be included in the manipulator’s inner circle and is more likely to overlook early red flags.

The “Scan”: How Manipulators Map Your Vulnerabilities

Manipulation rarely begins with control—it begins with observation. Many manipulators engage in an early, often subtle “scan,” paying close attention to your emotional cues, personal disclosures, and moments of openness. They are not listening to offer care; they are listening to identify where you are most exposed.

What Manipulators Look For In Black Gay Men

The “scan” involves listening for—or actively probing—specific pressure points. These details are not gathered to offer support. They’re used to predict where urgency, guilt, exclusivity, or reassurance will land the hardest, turning personal disclosure into a roadmap for control.

• Loneliness or isolation — recent breakups, relocation, or strained family ties
• Unresolved grief or loss — bereavement, estrangement, or unfinished emotional business
• Insecurity or shame — around identity, desirability, finances, immigration status, or ageing
• Caretaking tendencies — a strong desire to help, rescue, or be “the understanding one”
• Fear of abandonment — past experiences of rejection or instability
• Financial or housing stress — debt, precarity, or dependence on shared resources
• Desire for validation — especially after periods of invisibility or dismissal

These details are gathered to create a map of your emotional landscape. Once they know the terrain, they know exactly where to build the fence.

The Strategy: Mirroring Your Needs

Once vulnerabilities are identified, the manipulator shapes their interactions to fit your needs.

• If you feel misunderstood, they position themselves as “the only one who gets you.”
• If you feel undesired, they offer intense validation and attention—then withdraw it just enough to make attraction feel conditional on access to them.

What feels like a deep, rapid connection is often strategic calibration—designed to lower defences and build trust quickly. A need is met just enough to bind it to them, then rationed, timed, and deployed as a means of control.

The Risk: Why Emotional Vulnerabilities Must Be Protected

Vulnerability is not a flaw—it is how connection forms. But in manipulative hands, it becomes leverage. Unprotected disclosure hands a manipulator a map of your needs, allowing them to ration reassurance or weaponise your history to ensure compliance.

Protection means discernment, not shutdown. It means choosing safe channels (friends, therapy, community) to discharge emotional pressure, rather than depositing it into a relationship that hasn’t earned that access.

When someone knows exactly where you hurt, they also know where to apply pressure. Over time, this turns your personal disclosures into a liability. The secrets you shared in confidence can eventually be weaponised against you.

Common Vulnerabilities Expert Manipulators Target In Black Gay Men

Manipulators don’t invent vulnerabilities. They scan for existing pressure points and exploit them. For Black gay men, these pressures often emerge where race, sexuality, and cultural expectation intersect.

1. Signs of Internalised Shame Around Sexuality

In some DL circles within otherwise safe Western contexts, manipulative posers actively police outness and repeat fear‑based narratives to keep shame alive—even when no concrete risk exists. They pass on inherited anxieties as present danger, normalising secrecy and discouraging autonomy.

2. A Deep Desire for Acceptance

Rejection from family, religious communities, or peers can create a starvation for validation. A manipulator will “love bomb” you early on, positioning themselves as the only person who “truly understands” or accepts you. Once they are your sole source of validation, they can threaten to withdraw it.

3. Fear of “Outing”—The Silent Threat

In high‑risk contexts like Nigeria, being outed can lead to violence, job loss, or family estrangement. That fear functions as a leash. The threat rarely needs to be spoken. The knowledge that someone holds your secret is often enough to enforce compliance.

Manipulators often collect screenshots, private messages, or intimate photos and hold them as leverage.

This is one of the dangers of DL posing in safer Western contexts, such as the US and the UK. Even where legal protections exist, some people attempt to reactivate this fear—importing the logic of danger into environments where it no longer applies. By psychologically restoring the threat, they recreate conditions of silence and dependency long after the material risk has been removed.

4. Economic Vulnerability

Systemic racism and homophobia disproportionately expose Black men to financial instability and employment precarity, creating holes for financial abuse^[4]. Manipulators exploit this by offering support with conditions attached—“I pay the rent, so I make the rules”—or by actively undermining your ability to work, ensuring dependence and limiting your capacity to leave.

5. Social Isolation

Stigma already narrows the social safety net for many Black gay men. When you feel unwelcome in white‑dominated LGBTQ+ spaces or marginalised in straight Black spaces, manipulators exploit that vulnerability. They widen the gap by planting doubt about your friendships, reframing support networks as “unsafe” or “messy,” and quietly manufacturing conflict.

Over time, your world shrinks. Fewer people feel trustworthy. Fewer connections feel safe. Eventually, the abuser positions themselves as your primary—sometimes only—source of connection, making dependence feel natural rather than imposed.

6. Pressure to Perform Masculinity:

In some Black communities, cultural expectations equate vulnerability with weakness—handing manipulators a powerful tool for emotional policing. When you set a boundary or express hurt, they weaponise masculinity against you: “Stop acting like a female,” or “You’re too emotional.” The message is clear: silence equals strength. Over time, shame replaces self‑expression, and emotional needs go underground—not because they disappear, but because expressing them carries a cost.

7. Religious Trauma

For those from religious backgrounds (especially African and Caribbean diasporas), condemnation of homosexuality can leave deep psychological scars. Spiritual manipulation. They may echo religious guilt to control you, or conversely, present themselves as a “redemptive” figure who is “saving” you from your “sinful” lifestyle.

8. Migration and Legal Status

For asylum seekers or immigrants, legal status is a matter of survival. Manipulators exploit this by threatening deportation, withholding passports, controlling residency paperwork, or implying they could report you to the Home Office. Even unspoken, these threats create fear, silence, and forced compliance—turning immigration vulnerability into a tool of control.

9. The “Toxic Love” Myth

The scarcity of positive representations of Black gay love quietly lowers what feels normal or attainable. Tenderness, respect, and stability begin to seem out of reach—something meant for others, not for Black queer people. Over time, this marginalisation turns into self‑doubt, making unhealthy dynamics feel inevitable rather than unacceptable.

Manipulators exploit this by reframing control and inconsistency as “just how it is for us.” They present toxic love as the best available option and cast the desire for more as unrealistic—training you to settle for less while believing it’s all you deserve.

10. Health and HIV‑Related Stigma

Manipulators exploit mental health struggles or HIV‑related stigma to deepen control. They may dismiss your reality—“Don’t start your wildness right now”—or use sexual‑health coercion, such as threatening to disclose your PrEP use or HIV status, to shame you, undermine your confidence, and isolate you from support. By framing you as unlovable or your needs as burdensome, they discourage you from seeking professional help and position themselves as the only ones willing to “put up with you.”

What Is A Manipulator’s Weakness?

A manipulator’s core vulnerability is their dependence on control to feel powerful, stable, or secure. Beneath the surface confidence or charm, manipulative behaviour is often driven by high insecurity, fear of vulnerability, or a fragile sense of self.

1. Fear of Losing Control

Manipulators feel safest when they have influence over others. When boundaries are set or independence increases, they may escalate tactics. Loss of relevance or rejection is often deeply threatening.

2. Fragile Self‑Esteem

Projected confidence often masks unstable self‑worth. Manipulation helps maintain a carefully managed image and avoid internal insecurity. Challenges to that image can trigger defensiveness or coercion.

3. Low Tolerance for Vulnerability

Emotional openness requires accountability. For manipulators, vulnerability can feel unsafe or exposing, leading them to deflect, withdraw, or control when needs or boundaries are expressed.

4. Reliance on External Validation

Some manipulators depend on admiration or emotional labour to regulate self‑esteem. When that supply is threatened, they may use guilt, gaslighting, or intermittent affection to regain control.

5. Sensitivity to Exposure

Manipulation relies on secrecy and narrative control. Its power weakens when behaviour is named, documented, or shared. Transparency and accountability are therefore highly destabilising.

Grey Rocking and Other Strategies to Neutralise Manipulative Control

Due to length, this section will appear in Part Two of this series.

Mandem: Performing Masculinity For Control

“Mandem” masculinity refers to a hyper‑performative expression of urban Black British manhood rooted in London’s road culture and shaped by multicultural London English (MLE). It emphasises emotional impenetrability, dominance, and strict adherence to street codes.

In dating contexts—particularly within DL or manipulative dynamics—this masculinity often functions less as identity and more as a performance. It is signalled through a rigid aesthetic and behavioural script designed to distance the wearer from anything perceived as “gay.”

This hard mandem exterior is rehearsed and refined over several years, expressed through stoicism, reactive aggression, and emotional withdrawal. Loyalty to “the mandem” is often prioritised over intimacy. For manipulators, this performance of masculinity becomes a shield—deflecting suspicion while sustaining control.

How Femmophobia and ‘Masculinity’ Connect To Manipulation

Femmophobia—the fear or devaluation of anything feminine—and rigid masculinity norms create ideal conditions for manipulation. Many Black gay men are taught to associate status and desirability with emotional restraint and distance from anything deemed “feminine.”

In this context, manipulative partners may actively police gender expression, framing secrecy as “maturity” or “proper manhood.” A Black gay man performing hypermasculine mandem masculinity may weaponise a partner’s fear of being seen as “soft” or “femme” to increase emotional dependence. In doing so, manipulators amplify society’s existing fear of femininity and convert it into a powerful tool of control.

Critical Thinking 101: If masculinity is truly secure and healthy, it won’t panic around femininity. It can meet it openly—without ridicule, control, or defensiveness.

Science Linking Hypermasculinity or ‘Mandem’ and Manipulation

Research suggests that strong endorsement of hegemonic masculinity—a rigid, dominance‑oriented model of manhood—is associated with a higher propensity and perceived competence to emotionally manipulate others.

However, this relationship becomes more nuanced when researchers account for Dark Triad traits (narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy). When these traits are included, the unique predictive effect of masculinity weakens.

In practical terms, this suggests that hypermasculinity—often framed as a “proper man” or “mandem”—can function less as an authentic expression of identity and more as a social technology: a performed persona that signals authority, discourages challenge, and normalises control.

For individuals with manipulative tendencies, a hypermasculine presentation may be instrumentally useful—not because it reflects who they are, but because it supports Machiavellian strategies such as impression management, selective disclosure, and calculated pressure while keeping intent obscured (Waddell et al., 2020)^[6].

Manipulation As Compensation For Threatened Masculinity

Hypermasculinity is primarily a performance rather than a true expression of identity. Research indicates that coercive behaviour tends to escalate when masculinity feels fragile or threatened, rather than when it is stable and secure. In these situations, manipulation becomes a compensatory tool—used to reassert dominance and regain control. Studies explicitly show that coercive behaviour often serves as a strategy to reaffirm a threatened masculine identity.

Link Between “Down‑Low” (DL) Dynamics and Manipulation

In many Western contexts where secrecy is no longer a survival requirement, some people continue to perform “Down‑Low” (DL) aesthetics for personal gain. They use secrecy to enforce hierarchy and monetise scarcity as exclusivity. What should be a personal boundary becomes a tool of control when one partner imposes strict limits on visibility to dominate the other.

On apps like Grindr or Tinder, DL posers manufacture fear—“It’s dangerous for me,” “I’m not out”—to justify controlling behaviour. You are pressured into a relationship that exists only in the shadows: private meetings, odd hours, no public presence. Over time, this reinforces shame, invisibility, and emotional imbalance.

DL posers strip partners of power by positioning themselves as “higher‑value” while reducing partners to something hidden and disposable. Dependency is sustained by making you feel inferior, replaceable, and grateful for access.

How DL Posers Exploit Manufactured Social Power For Control

DL posers— often ordinary gay men like everyone else—on dating apps construct a false hierarchy by weaponising secrecy and emotional unavailability to project invented scarcity. This performance creates the illusion of elevated status, allowing them to accumulate unearned social capital. That capital is then used to dominate relational dynamics, where the partner is expected to serve, protect, and centre the DL performer’s comfort at all costs.

🚩 Red Flags of a Manipulative DL Dynamic

• Information Control: Refusal to share photos or basic life details; insisting on deleting chat history.
• Compartmentalisation: Avoiding public spaces or introducing you to friends.
• Emotional Blackmail: Using guilt—“You don’t understand what I’d lose”—to silence your needs.
• Inconsistency: Cycles of ghosting followed by intense engagement only when it suits their schedule.

Why We’re Talking About This Now—London

Community‑based intelligence suggests the possible emergence of a specific pattern of manipulative behaviour affecting gay men in London. We’ve received multiple community reports describing similar tactics, including weaponised hypermasculinity, strategic “DL” posing, and forms of coercive control, used to exploit trust and vulnerability.

These reports remain anecdotal and unverified, and we cannot confirm identities, coordination, or scale at this time. However, the consistency of the behaviours described warrants awareness—not alarm.

Community Note: Stay Calm—Stay Sharp:

• Trust your instincts. If something feels “off,” rushed, or controlling, slow it down or disengage.
• Guard your data. Avoid sharing sensitive information—address, workplace, finances, immigration status, intimate images—until trust is clearly established.
• Don’t isolate. Keep at least one trusted friend or contact aware of what’s going on.
• Report harm. Call 999 in an emergency. For non‑emergency concerns in England and Wales, contact 101. If you cannot speak during a 999 call, press 55 when prompted.
• Contact Support: https://www.police.uk/pu/contact-us/
• Get support: Galop—LGBT+ abuse support: https://www.galop.org.uk/ | 0800 999 5428

If you have information to share with us, please do so confidentially and avoid naming individuals publicly at this stage.

What to Do Next

If you recognise these signs, the most important step is to break the silence. Talk to a trusted friend or someone you feel safe with. Manipulation thrives in the dark.

1. Trust Your Gut: If you feel “something does not make sense”, you’re likely being gaslit.
2. Document Safely: Keep a hidden log of incidents, screenshots, and dates.
3. Reconnect: Reach out to one person outside the relationship.
4. Specialist Support: Contact organisations that understand the intersection of being Black and gay.

UK Support Options

• Galop: The UK’s LGBT+ anti-abuse charity.
• Switchboard LGBT+: A safe space to talk about anything.
• Men’s Advice Line: Support for men experiencing domestic abuse.
• Emergency: Call 999 (Emergency) or 101 (Non-emergency).

References

1. Abramson, K. (2014). TURNING UP THE LIGHTS ON GASLIGHTING. Philosophical Perspectives, 28(1), 1–30. https://doi.org/10.1111/phpe.12046
2. Bridges, T. (2013). A Very “Gay” Straight? Hybrid Masculinities, Sexual Aesthetics, and the Changing Relationship between Masculinity and Homophobia. Gender & Society, 28(1), 58–82. https://doi.org/10.1177/0891243213503901
3. Dutton, D. G., & Painter, S. (1993). Emotional attachments in abusive relationships: a test of traumatic bonding theory. Violence and Victims, 8(2), 105–120. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8193053/
4. Home Office. (2022, September 5). Domestic Abuse: statutory guidance. GOV.UK. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/domestic-abuse-act-2021/domestic-abuse-statutory-guidance-accessible-version
5. Meyer, I. H. (2003). Prejudice, social stress, and mental health in lesbian, gay, and bisexual populations: Conceptual issues and research evidence. Psychological Bulletin, 129(5), 674–697. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.129.5.674
6. Waddell, C., Van Doorn, G., March, E., & Grieve, R. (2020). Dominance or deceit: The role of the Dark Triad and hegemonic masculinity in emotional manipulation. Personality and Individual Differences, 166, 110160. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2020.110160
7. Women’s Aid. (2025, August 18). Coercive Control – Women’s Aid Information Support. https://womensaid.org.uk/information-support/what-is-domestic-abuse/coercive-control/