Tell-Tale Signs of a Manipulative “Mandem” Performer in Gay Relationships

The Anatomy of a Stitched-Up Masculinity Performance

Before I begin, not every masculine, discreet, London- or roadman-coded man is abusive. In its original usage, the term mandem simply meant “my friends” or “the boys” and carried broadly positive, communal connotations long before it became attached to some of the negative dynamics of performance, control, and emotional manipulation now being discussed in certain gay relationship contexts.

Origin of “Mandem”:

Mandem belongs to the wider social and linguistic world of Multicultural London English, or MLE. Though heavily Caribbean-influenced, MLE is a recognised London dialect that emerged in multicultural parts of London. It is a rich, expressive language that is pleasant to hear^[6]. MLE is not evidence of abuse.

At the same time, scholarship on MLE shows that styles associated with the “roadman” image can be socially embellished and performed, which matters here because performance is precisely the issue under discussion.

The Aim of This Article

This article does not condemn any aspect of Black British speech, urban style, or the presentation of UK Black masculinity itself. It is examining a narrower figure: the partner who weaponises a hard-man masculine script—dominance, intimidation, emotional control, secrecy, hierarchy, and image management—to control another man in an intimate relationship.

This distinction is relevant because masculinity is not abuse. Privacy is not abuse. Discretion is not abuse. But performing masculinity or secrecy to dominate or control another is abuse. Coercive control is abuse: a criminal offence recognised under British law.

What I Mean by a “Mandem Performer” in This Article

A “mandem performer,” as used here, is not simply a masculine man, a private man, or a man who speaks MLE. He is someone who turns masculine performance into a relationship weapon and uses hardness as theatre and control as personality. He is heavily invested in status, optics, hierarchy, and “don’t violate me” politics, but far less invested in mutuality, accountability, emotional steadiness, or repair. The issue is not masculinity. The issue is the weaponisation of masculine performance for control.

Dissecting Masculinity Performances in Black Gay Culture

In Black gay culture, some forms of DL secrecy and some mandem masculinity presentations operate as performances: social masks worn to command attention, shape perception, or gain status.

From a sociological point of view, performance can be understood as a socially enacted compensatory behaviour that functions as a shield against perceived inadequacy or insecurity. This helps explain why compensatory performances are often exaggerated beyond their ordinary range and are highly sensitive to questioning or criticism.

Performed Masculinities and the Policing of “Real Men” Talk

One of the clearest ways masculinity becomes performative in Black gay culture is through the policing of “real men” talk. Here, masculinity is not simply lived; it is monitored, announced, defended, and ranked. The language of “real men,” “proper men,” “masc only,” “no fems,” “don’t violate,” “be a man,” or “I’m not on that soft stuff” does more than describe preference. It acts as social regulation and draws a line between those granted masculine legitimacy and those marked as lacking it.

This policing also reveals something deeper: insecurity. Men who are secure in themselves usually do not need to constantly patrol the borders of manhood. By contrast, compulsive “real men” talk often suggests that masculinity is being defended rather than simply inhabited. It creates a hierarchy in which some men are read as more authentic, respectable, or desirable than others, while others are pushed downward.

Mandem/DL Performance and Sexual Role Scripting

Sexual role labels among gay men do not always match their private sexual behaviour. In Black gay spaces shaped by strict masculinity norms, this matters because “Top” can become more about masculine status than genuine sexual preference. In this context, some Mandem and DL performers may claim a “total top identity” to protect their masculine status, even when private desire may be more complex.

This dynamic can create a complex emotional dilemma. When a man keeps suppressing his receptive desires to maintain a masculine image of toughness, this can lead to resentment, frustration, or emotional disconnection over time. On the other hand, if he chooses to express those desires, the internalised shame or vulnerability he associates with bottoming may still cause distress. When public masculine presentation conflicts with private desire, intimacy can turn into a power struggle.  In some cases, this tension may contribute to situations where a partner uses shaming language or behaviour on another partner during intimacy, particularly when struggling with their own discomfort or unresolved internal conflict.

Research into Black gay men’s sexual-position discourse shows that some gay men use bottom-shaming to police masculinity or to distance themselves from femininity or perceived weakness.

Dealing With Mandem/DL Performers in Gay Relationships

In some gay relationships, the controlling partner hides behind a performance of “hardness” to exert control. He frames one-way obedience as respect, your silence as maturity, your shrinking world as loyalty, and your confusion as your fault. Because abuse between men is often filtered through shame, secrecy, and heteronormative assumptions, some victims do not recognise this immediately.

The hypermasculinity performer attacks your learning and frames reading or seeking knowledge as “soft stuff” or “feminine,” not out of concern for your well-being, but because knowledge weakens his control. His power depends on your ignorance. He mocks reading in public while privately using ideas, concepts, and even academic theories to manipulate you.

Recent research on gay and bisexual men’s disclosure of intimate partner violence found that survivors described verbal abuse, humiliation, degradation, coercion, and significant barriers to naming and disclosing what was happening (Maxwell et al., 2025)^[9].

Hypermasculinity as Overcompensation for Masculine Insecurity

Sociologist Robb Willer and colleagues (2013)^[13] conducted significant research on how a man’s masculine performance can become more intense when threatened. They refer to this as the “masculine overcompensation thesis.”

In their research, men who were told they possessed relatively feminine traits based on false feedback testing became more aggressive, more homophobic, and more interested in stereotypically masculine things—such as buying an SUV or supporting war—compared to men who weren’t given any masculinity-threatening feedback.

🔴 Tell-Tale Signs of a Manipulative Mandem Performer

The manipulative “mandem” performer uses masculinity not as a neutral identity, but as a social weapon. The key red flags often include:

a. Rigid Respect/Disrespect Codes

He demands constant deference or obedience to his person or “what he stands for”– whatever he says that is. Any perceived slight is met with punishment—ghosting, verbal aggression, intimidation, humiliation disguised as banter, withdrawal, or social exclusion.

b. Hypermasculine Overperformance

He relies on exaggerated dominance, stoicism, hardness, or aggression, often as overcompensation for insecurity, fragility, or fear of vulnerability.

c. Emotional Manipulation and Gaslighting

He denies your reality, shifts blame, minimises your concerns, rewrites events, and pushes you to doubt your own memory, judgment, and emotional responses. Sometimes this includes staged acts of destabilisation, such as getting on the phone to discuss you with someone else, or pretending to do so in front of you, to make you anxious and disoriented (Sweet, 2019)^[11].

Be particularly alert to quick diagnostic remarks like, “Why are you getting agitated?” “Why are you being dramatic?”, or “Why are you acting chaotic?” These are often not genuine observations, but manipulative attempts to pathologise your reaction and throw you off-balance.

d. Covert Surveillance and Control

He monitors your movements, pressures you to delete evidence, checks your messages, or uses phones, photos, and recordings to create fear and instability. He would take or pretend to take photos/videos to instil paranoia and destabilise your sense of safety.

A “mandem” manipulator may take unauthorised photos or recordings of you in vulnerable moments — or deliberately act as though he is doing so where you can see — to destabilise you and instil fear^[8]. For example, during an argument or an intimate moment, he may suddenly raise his phone as if recording you.

e. Emotional Whiplash or the So-Called “Emotional Rollercoaster”

This is often described as “taking someone on an emotional rollercoaster” in queer culture. He cycles between intensity and withdrawal—love bombing, sudden coldness, silence, or disappearance—creating dependency through inconsistency.

f. Threats of Exposure or Reputation Damage

He uses your sexual identity, private information, intimate images, or fear of social humiliation as leverage to maintain control.

g. Dependency Engineering

He gradually undermines your autonomy—emotionally, socially, or financially—so that leaving begins to feel costly, frightening, or impossible.

Research on threatened egotism suggests that aggression can emerge when an inflated but fragile self-view is threatened (Baumeister et al., 1996)^[1].

Weaponised Secrecy and Isolation When the DL Mask is Involved

In some relational dynamics, mandem performance and performed DL secrecy overlap. Here, he uses concealment as a strategy: keeping the relationship hidden, refusing public acknowledgement, avoiding shared social visibility, and discouraging your ties to external support systems. In this context, the DL mask is not merely a matter of privacy. It becomes a mechanism of control—one that protects his image by isolating you and keeping the relationship structurally unaccountable.

Mandem Performers and Punishment

Harmful behaviours associated with “mandem masculinity” often stem from a need to defend a fragile self-image through control, intimidation, and image management. In such cases, masculinity shifts from being an identity expression and starts functioning as a means of control: a shield for insecurity and a weapon turned against the partner.

A recent UK study on technology-facilitated domestic abuse shows that coercive control is increasingly being enacted through digital surveillance, monitoring, location tracking, and the use of Internet-enabled devices to personalise manipulation and control (Brookfield et al., 2024)^[2].

Punishment for Masculinity Disrespect

One of the clearest signs that you are dealing with a manipulative mandem performer is his tendency to punish anything he perceives as disrespect to his masculine mask. You say no, ask a reasonable question, seek clarity, or decline a demand, and suddenly you are “disrespectful,” “moving funny,” “trying to violate,” or “not rating him properly.”

Instead of meeting your boundary like an adult, he punishes it. He interprets almost everything through the language of power, hierarchy, and status.

Punishment Behaviours Under Masculinity Threat

In relationships where one person feels a deep need to prove or perform his masculinity, perceived disrespect often triggers punishment. Ordinary disagreement, boundary-setting, or requests for clarity are not processed as part of healthy relational exchange, but as threats to status, authority, or masculine credibility.

Common Punishment Tactics Under Masculinity Threat

To avoid exposing vulnerability—whether sexual, emotional, or personal—the performer turns conflict into a status contest that must be won.

1. Withholding Tactics

These behaviours punish the other party by removing warmth, access, or communication until they feel anxious enough to self-correct.

• Withdrawal — He suddenly pulls away emotionally or physically, cutting off all connection without explanation.
• Sulking — He stays present but broods, sighs, or goes moody to make you feel guilty without stating the issue directly.
• The Silent Treatment — He deliberately ignores you for an extended period as punishment.
• Sudden Emotional Chill — He abruptly turns cold and frosty to signal that you have crossed a line.
• Selective Warmth — Affection returns only when you apologise, submit, or move back into the role he wants.

2. Degradation Tactics

These behaviours reduce your confidence and place you beneath him through shame, ridicule, or scorn.

• Contempt — Eye-rolling, sneering, mocking, sarcasm, and open disrespect meant to make you feel inferior.
• Humiliation Disguised as Banter — Insults or belittling comments framed as “just jokes” or “just teasing” so he can wound you without taking responsibility.
• Attacking Your Interests or Values — He insults what matters to you—your hobbies, work, beliefs, or people you admire—to hurt you and derail the real issue.
• Masculinity Policing Through Shame — He uses labels like “soft,” “feminine,” “weak,” or “emotional” to push you back into compliance.

3. Destabilisation Tactics

These behaviours are designed to confuse you, distort reality, and make you doubt your own judgment.

• Gaslighting Lite — Small denials, dismissals, and distortions that gradually make you question your memory and feelings.
• Baiting You Into Dysregulation — He provokes you until you react, then points to your reaction as proof that you are the problem.
• Moral Inversion — He presents your self-defence as aggression while framing his own aggression as principle, discipline, or “real man” behaviour.
• Moving Goalposts — The standard keeps changing, so nothing you do is ever enough, and you remain stuck in permanent correction mode.

4. Social Control Tactics

These actions manage the broader social field around you so that he keeps the upper hand in both public and private settings.

• Triangulation — He drags in a third party, real or implied, to isolate you, make you jealous, or create the impression that he has access to more people.
• Covert Reputational Damage — He quietly gossips, smears, or plants negative ideas about you behind your back.
• Public/Private Split — He appears calm, charming, or reasonable in front of others but controlling or cruel in private, protecting his image while weakening your credibility.
• Weaponised Secrecy and Isolation — He keeps the relationship hidden, avoids public acknowledgement, and discourages your connection to outside support.

5. Coercive Intimidation Tactics

These behaviours create fear directly, making the relationship feel unsafe to challenge.

• Intimidation — Yelling, looming, aggressive gestures, threats, or breaking things to make you feel afraid.
• Covert Surveillance and Control — Monitoring your movements, checking messages, deleting evidence, recording or pretending to record you in order to create paranoia.
• Threats of Exposure or Reputation Damage — Using your identity, private information, or intimate material as leverage.
• Weaponising Your Trauma — Turning your painful history, secrets, or past violations into tools for shaming or controlling you.
• Dependency Engineering — Undermining your emotional, social, or financial autonomy so that leaving feels frightening or impossible.

6. Deflection Through Pathologising

These behaviours shift attention from the real issue, invite confusion, and trap you in a self-defence loop.

• Emotional Invalidation — He labels your distress as “too sensitive” or “dramatic” to avoid admitting that his behaviour was hurtful.
• Character Assassination — He uses comments like “Why are you fighting with everyone?” or “You always have problems with people” to recast your boundaries or distress as evidence of a personal defect.
• The “Flaw” List — When confronted, he suddenly lists your past mistakes or weaknesses to muddy the issue and “even the score.”
• Intelligence Shaming — He mocks your reasoning or makes you feel foolish so that you stop trusting your own perspective.

Recent empirical research has identified “mental health weaponisation” as a tactic of coercive control where abusers cast victims as “chaotic” or emotionally unstable, leverage past trauma against them, and mobilise diagnoses or symptoms to undermine their credibility (Cooper & Sweet, 2025)^[3].

What These Behaviours Do to the Mind

Patterns of coercive or controlling behaviour do not merely hurt feelings. They can reorganise how you think, feel, and move through daily life.

a. For Victims

These patterns produce fear, confusion, self-doubt, and a gradual collapse of inner ease. The victim begins to live in anticipation: scanning moods, editing speech, managing reactions, and trying to stay one step ahead of punishment. Over time, the result can be psychological destabilisation, dependency, traumatic bonding^[5], isolation, mental health decline, and trauma-related distress.

b. For Perpetrators

Perpetrators of emotional harm rarely possess an internal corrective for the patterns they spread and, sooner or later, become affected by the very mind games they use on others.

What is repeatedly projected outward is often a copy of what has already been organised internally.

Some perpetrators use phones to gather selective “evidence” in order to disguise their own abuse, shift blame, and portray the victim as unstable. In one study, a survivor described being recorded while crying, then threatened with police involvement and told she was “mad and going off.”

Emotional Harm as a Coping Strategy

A simple way to understand why some people repeatedly use emotional harm to hurt or control others is to see it as a maladaptive way of coping with internal distress. Instead of dealing with upsetting feelings such as shame, anger, or insecurity in a healthy way, individuals like this will try to offload that distress onto those around them.

This often happens where emotional regulation and self-reflection are limited or poorly developed. A person with stronger emotional regulation can recognise distress, reflect on its source, and calm themselves without resorting to control. By contrast, those who rely on emotional harm often struggle to do this effectively. Instead of self-soothing, they may become overwhelmed by difficult emotions and begin to manipulate or control others in an attempt to regain stability. In this way, the inability to manage what is happening internally can drive the need to control the external environment—and the people within it.

The Boomerang Effect

You cannot keep poisoning the well without eventually drinking from it. People who rely on manipulation, gaslighting, cruelty, or coercive control do not remain untouched by those patterns. Over time, such behaviours can organise the mind around power, distrust, vigilance, and image management rather than mutuality, honesty, or repair.

a. Erosion of Trust

By operating through manipulation and intimidation, perpetrators corrode the trust required for genuine intimacy. Without trust, there is no real safety and very little chance of a genuine relationship taking shape.

b. Paranoia

When deceit or domination becomes a person’s primary mode of relating, it can, over time, become harder to separate what is actually being said from what is being inferred or suspected. As the person begins to assume that others may be operating by similar rules, this can harden into a persistently suspicious worldview—one that is hypervigilant to betrayal, disrespect, or violation and leaves little room for inner peace.

c. Profound Isolation

Ultimately, the emotional games manipulators play to secure power and attention, or to punish others in deniable ways, create a barrier to authentic connection. They may surround themselves with a lot of people, yet remain deeply isolated internally because their relationships operate on a transactional rather than a genuine basis. They build a fortress to keep their insecurities safe, only to find that they have locked themselves inside a prison of their own making.

d. Reverse Gaslighting

Repeated gaslighting can erode shared reality, creating a toxic feedback loop in which, in some cases, the perpetrator also becomes entangled in the confusion they continually exploit, especially where denial, projection, and self-deception are already central to the relationship dynamic.

Over time, the boundary between manipulating reality and inhabiting one’s own distortions can begin to blur. This can erode the relational and psychological stability of everyone involved, reinforcing mistrust, emotional dysregulation, and distorted communication. Some writers use the term “reverse gaslighting” to interpretively describe this dynamic.

Repeated manipulative behaviour can become so ingrained in a person over time that abuse begins to operate as the manipulator’s default language of interaction. He may become less reflective in judging situations and making decisions, ultimately becoming prone to reading ordinary situations through a logic of control, threat, and advantage—until manipulation starts spilling beyond one relationship into a broader way of dealing with every encounter.

Manipulation, Compartmentalisation, Cognitive Overload, and Leakage

To inflict continuous harm without becoming overwhelmed by guilt, perpetrators often create emotional distance from the victim’s suffering. One common way this happens is through compartmentalisation: the separation of abusive behaviour from moral self-understanding. This allows them to act in ways that violate their own stated values without fully experiencing the guilt or anxiety such behaviour would otherwise provoke, because the abusive compartment remains psychologically cut off from the self-image of being a “good person.”

Over time, forms of compartmentalisation may contribute to cognitive overload, inconsistent self-presentation, and behavioural leakage. When this strain mixes with the constant suppression required to uphold a mandem performance, together with the underlying insecurity that helped trigger the performance in the first place, the result may be especially destabilising.

Though not an established empirical concept yet, these conditions may help explain certain patterns of “leakage behaviour” observed in some Black gay men, especially where substance use is involved—a dynamic I describe as the “jumpy gay effect.”

Coercive Control and the UK Law

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) defines controlling or coercive behaviour as a form of domestic abuse. Its guidance describes it as a pattern of assault, threats, humiliation, intimidation, or other abuse used to harm, punish, or frighten a victim. The CPS also makes clear that domestic abuse law and prosecution guidance apply regardless of gender or sexuality, and that controlling or coercive behaviour is not about a single unpleasant incident but an ongoing pattern of domination. Under section 76 of the Serious Crime Act 2015, the offence carries a maximum sentence of up to five years’ imprisonment (CPS, 2025)^[4].

This part matters because some manipulators govern relationships through fear, dependency, and uncertainty rather than visible force. CPS communications guidance further states that sharing or threatening to share intimate photographs or film without consent can be criminal.

For threat offences, prosecutors do not need to prove whether the image or video actually exists.

Core Coping Strategies

Domestic abuse can include emotional and controlling behaviour, and support guidance consistently emphasises grounding, support-seeking, and safety planning.

Here are some core coping strategies for navigating emotionally manipulative behaviour such as gaslighting, especially in relationships shaped by performed masculinity or coercive control.

🧭 Trust Your Perceptions

If something feels off, take that seriously. Manipulation often works by making you doubt your own memory, judgment, or emotional reality. Keeping notes, journaling key incidents, or checking in with trusted people can help you stay grounded in what actually happened.

🛑 Set Clear Boundaries

Be clear about what is and is not acceptable. State your limits calmly, consistently, and without over-explaining. Follow through with consequences when those boundaries are crossed.

🧘 Regulate Your Emotions

Grounding techniques such as slow breathing, movement, or brief pauses can help you remain steady during or after destabilising interactions. The goal is not to suppress your feelings, but to stop the manipulator from pulling you into panic, confusion, or reactive self-defence.

🗣 Don’t Shy Away From Seeking Support

Manipulation grows stronger in isolation. Reach out to trusted friends, family, support groups, or a therapist. If you are in an abusive situation, specialist domestic abuse support can also help you think clearly and plan safely.

🧱 Rebuild Self-Worth

Reconnect with the people, interests, values, and routines that remind you who you are outside the relationship. Emotional manipulation often works by shrinking your confidence; recovery involves rebuilding a steadier sense of self.

📚 Read and Learn

Learning is a stabilising force because it provides language (affect labelling), pattern recognition, and cognitive grounding. Once you can name what is happening, your mind becomes better equipped to organise a response. Reading can also strengthen self-trust—confidence in your own judgement—while sharpening critical thinking, making manipulative tactics easier to recognise.

Research also shows that psychoeducational learning and stress-management training can improve self-efficacy—strong confidence in your ability to navigate difficult situations, build resilience, and manage emotional responses more effectively under pressure.

🚪 Know When to Walk Away

If patterns of harm persist and your well-being is at risk, consider creating a safety plan and seeking professional guidance to exit the relationship safely.

A safety plan, trusted support, and professional guidance can make leaving safer and more manageable. If you are in immediate danger in the UK, please call 999.

DNB Frameworks Most Helpful Here

This article sits within a broader body of work on DNB that covers masculinity, secrecy, trust, conflict, and relational safety.

The following frameworks are especially useful for understanding the dynamics discussed here:

1. Mandem, DL and Power
   This is a direct companion to this article, especially for understanding how mandem masculinity, performance, and DL secrecy can operate as a control strategy.
2. Masculinity Conflict Framework (MCF)
   Useful for understanding punishment, status-sensitive conflict, coercive disagreement, and the point at which protection becomes more important than repair.
3. Masculinity Anchors Model (MAM)
   Helpful for explaining why masculine performance becomes socially valuable, why “real men” talk is policed, and why some men become heavily invested in hardness, status, and masculine legitimacy.
4. Absurdity Reps Method (ARM)
   Useful for neutralising shame, humiliation, masculinity policing, and public ridicule. ARM works by exaggerating shame scripts into absurdity and pairing them with small truth-aligned actions.
5. Dynamic Disclosure Model (DDM)
   Useful for the sections on DL secrecy, concealment, compartmentalisation, and the difference between privacy and weaponised secrecy.
6. The Trust Onion Model
   Useful as a preventive model for pacing intimacy, access, and closeness, aligned with established trust and safety.
7. The Bridge Model
   Best suited for community rebuilding work where the focus shifts from manipulation and coercion toward restoring trust and healthier connections among Black brothers.

Conclusion

If a relationship repeatedly leaves you afraid, confused, ashamed, isolated, or constantly managing another person’s ego to stay safe, that is already serious. The NHS advises anyone experiencing domestic abuse to seek support, and Galop provides specialist support for LGBT+ victims and survivors of abuse and violence in the UK. Recognition is often the first step out of confusion (NHS, 2022)^[10].

Getting Support in the UK

If you are in immediate danger, please call emergency services. If you want confidential support as an LGBT+ person in the UK, Galop runs a national helpline and support services for LGBT+ victims and survivors of abuse and violence.

FAQ

References

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2. Brookfield, K., Fyson, R., & Goulden, M. (2023). Technology-Facilitated Domestic Abuse: an under-Recognised Safeguarding Issue? British Journal of Social Work, 54(1). https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcad206
3. Cooper, C. E., & Sweet, P. L. (2024). “Daddy Issues” and Diagnoses: Gendered Weaponisation of Mental Health in Intimate Relationships. Violence against Women. https://doi.org/10.1177/10778012241277894
4. Crown Prosecution Service. (2025). CPS – Controlling or coercive behaviour in an intimate or family relationship. https://www.cps.gov.uk/prosecution-guidance/controlling-or-coercive-behaviour-intimate-or-family-relationship
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9. Maxwell, S., Rosaleen O’Brien, & Stenhouse, R. (2025). Disclosure Of Intimate Partner Violence Among Gay and Bisexual Men: A Narrative Inquiry. Journal of Homosexuality, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/00918369.2025.2563242
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12. Willer, R., Rogalin, C. L., Conlon, B., & Wojnowicz, M. T. (2013). Overdoing Gender: A Test of the Masculine Overcompensation Thesis. American Journal of Sociology, 118(4), 980–1022. https://doi.org/10.1086/668417