The Construction of Entrepreneurial Masculinity: Competition, Tech-savviness and Choice in Online Intimacy Coaching

This chapter explores the constructions of masculinity in the field of intimacy coaching for heterosexual men, exploring three so-called “digital academies” in the Greek online space. Intimacy coaching trains disenfranchised men on matters pertaining to relationships with women, such as how to flirt and initiate contact, be charming, attractive and confident, evade friendzoning, and maintain women’s interest in the relationship, among others. These services suggest an updated form of hegemonic masculinity that departs from the more direct, street-style flirting that is discursively associated with orientalized tropes in the Greek public space. Men’s coaching is a technology of the self that frames masculinities through a bourgeois value system of competition, tech-savviness, and choice. The chapter argues that these training courses inscribe masculinity as an entrepreneurial endeavor that embraces neoliberal tropes, including abundance and risk-taking while repudiating lower-class lifestyles and mindsets.