Comment Response: The Differences (and Similarities) Between ENTP Men and ENTP Women

I haven’t done a comment response post in a while.  I usually just comment back to the person individually, or answer their question in a Q&A, but I when Cody asked me the following question, I started responding and this post ran away from me, in the best way ;D  There is just soooo much to talk about on this subject, and what I’ve written here is just the tip of a large and beautiful iceberg.

Cody asked:
So question for you, what is the difference in your opinion, between an entp male and entp female?

Thanks Cody!  This is an excellent question!  And actually one that I could write posts on forever 😀  There are endless things I could say about the differences in male and female versions of *every* type!  I *love* gender; it’s actually one of my favorite topics ever… which goes along perfectly with your question!

ENTPs are one of the (possibly *the*) biggest gender explorers of all the types.  ENTP’s Type Specialization is “Individual Potential,” starting with ourselves, and *every* choice we make is toward the purpose of further understanding and utilizing what we could potentially be.  Gender and sexuality are such a huge part of that identity and self-potential, of course ENTPs would love exploring that!

Neon pink suspenders FTW!

In practice this means that ENTPs (when we’re not too ashamed of it) are often both uber sexual in our own gender, and/or not afraid to explore the aspects and benefits the other gender has to offer.

So male ENTPs often *really* enjoy masculinity, whether it’s liking goofy “boyish” stuff, reveling in their own impressive sexuality, harmless womanizing, etc., and female ENTPs are often surprisingly girly, whether being flirty and sweet or loving colorful girly clothes that show off their (our) feminine wiles.  For example, people often expect female ENTPs to be hard and stereotypically “T,” (which, can we please review the real definition of “Thinking” please?), and people who think that way are often surprised to hear that I *love* tutus, to the point of mild obsession, and fashion in general; that I had a smiley face collection growing up, and that I cry pretty easily when I’m worried about other people.

But ENTP is a study in contrasts.  We naturally *love* placing two seemingly diametrically opposed things beside one another, in order to bring out and complement aspects of both.  Angles and curves, leather and lace, technology and style, zombies and princesses; when you put two wildly different things together, they accentuate each other’s differences and showcase parts of each that might otherwise go unnoticed.  While that principle isn’t exclusive to ENTPs, when it comes to the conceptual use of individuals, we rock it hard.  (See what I did there?  If you accentuate high language, like technical or science jargon, with low language like slang or goofy idioms, the contrast between the two packs a bigger punch than either alone.  ENTPs tend to be big fans of the effect; Benjamin Franklin did it all the time! :D)

From RDJ’s Facebook page (that he runs himself)

And what creates a stronger, more powerful, playful contrast, especially in the area of self-potential, than gender?  And unbridled ENTPs *love* the interplay between masculinity and femininity — not just between people, but also within themselves.  Whether that’s by just enjoying how the genders are different in the ways usually thought of, or turning them on their heads.

If there were a graph about the types’ relationships to gender exploration, ENTP would be in the crossdressing corner.  (There isn’t, as yet, such a graph, but I would greatly enjoy making one at some point.)  That may seem odd to say, but it is an archetype *everywhere* throughout fiction and real life alike; ENTPs <3 crossdressing.  From Mulan to Mal Reynolds, Robert Downey Jr. to Zack Morris; you see it *everywhere.*

“The Boy is Big” by Calise, age 4 maybe? Yes, I knew how to read.  It was just funny as anything.

It’s actually a love I felt *insanely* guilty about growing up, though I don’t remember a time before it was an interest of mine.  Not as much “what would I be like as a boy,” although I certainly have thought a lot on that one (crossdressing became mostly an impossibility for me after puberty), but enjoying how juxtaposing men with feminine situations, clothing, etc. brought out and explored a side of masculinity that otherwise would have gone unseen.  A side which, as a straight girl (something I was unsure of over the years), who really really really likes men, I really wanted to see.

I often say that ESTPs tend to act like little boys, whatever gender they are, while ENTPs tend to *think* like teenaged boys, whatever gender they are.  Obviously, that demonstrates that the things we tend to think of as being “boy” things to do or think are stereotyped, but the principle still holds true.  While ESTP girls tend to like running, jumping and brashly goofing off in ways we tend to think of as masculine (though ESTP girls can be very girly too, when they want to be), ENTP girls, just like ENTP boys, tend to really like thinking about things like technology and sex, and love sarcasm and irony just as much as ENTP boys do.

Aaah!  Painfully awkward 16th birthday pic! Please scroll back up and look at the other pic after this one, bc this one is just sad.

Even though, growing up, it was often implied my love of girly stuff and my sweetness meant I *couldn’t* be analytical or good at being a Thinker (O_o why?!), on the flip side I so often felt *bad* at being a girl.  My tendency to say whatever came into my head, no matter how awkward it was and my ingenuousness in general, meant that other girls tended to treat me like I was “doing it wrong,” and boys paid little attention.  My lack of fashion sense with a new set of curves that I had new clue how to use certainly didn’t help, and my (albeit hidden) aforementioned gender exploration certainly didn’t help my lack of feeling feminine.  There was one aLBoP commenter that said there was no way Mulan could be ENTP because she was way too awkward; clearly they didn’t know me in highschool 😉  I know ENTP girls, and T girls in general, often feel that way, like there’s a “right” and “wrong” way to be your own gender, and it’s really a shame.  I know often male Fs feel the same way.

Although, interestingly enough, though I don’t say it in public as often, I like to tease ENTP guys of being such girls sometimes too, and I mean that with the most love possible 😉

My INFJ was recently practicing interacting with the world in a way that brought out his ENTP Paradoxitype, and after trying it for a while commented that one of the ways in which it was difficult was that it was like, “being half turned on, all the time, by the whole world at once.”  I immediately yelled, “Yes!!”  It’s nice, after a whole life of feeling that way, flirting with the whole world at once as a way to understand and explore it, and feeling guilty for that fact, to have someone say that that was a normal side effect of that sort of emotional vulnerability.

For all the seeming braggadocio that ENTP men can have, that really reflects an emotional vulnerability and exposure to the world that usually leaves them remarkably soft and sweet on the inside.  It’s been amazing to me the open and genuine ways in which healthy ENTP men care about other people, often to the point of getting very emotional as I do, about the people they care about and the ways they’re treated.  It’s a shame to me that that’s thought of as being less masculine or analytical in our culture, because ENTP men are just one example of how masculine that trait can be.

In that same vein, feeling bad at their fourth cognition step of Action through introverted Sensing, often makes both gender ENTPs feel like screw-ups that nobody could be proud of.  In response to this, we sometimes want others to show us that no matter what we do wrong, they will still want us and care about us anyway, even to the point of pushing people away emotionally, secretly hoping the other person will “chase” us, running just slow enough to get caught.  While stereotypically, that’s something that women do, playing “games” to get the other person to show they care, I’ve seen plenty of male ENTPs–both fictionally and irl–do that exact same thing.  (Obviously, as with all the type trends I talk about, that doesn’t mean *only* ENTPs do that, but just that it’s a common thing for ENTPs–myself included–to do, and that those are the collective *reasons* for ENTPs specifically to do it.)

Encapsulated uber-sexual and gender exploration in one.
Read post here.

And so, like I said, a study in contrasts.  In any way shape or form, we like to explore both “What am I?” and “What would I be if I weren’t me?”  We like to hop back and forth between pushing the limits of our own gender (the uber sexuality I talked about), and blurring our lines with the other gender.  Simple in principle, complex in application, ENTP men and women tend to be very similar in the *why*s of choices, and yet often very different in what those individual choices are.  Gender is our fav, and yet the different ways we choose to explore it may differ wildly, especially by gender itself.

Thanks for your question, Cody!  Obviously I had fun answering it ;D

Much love,
<3 Calise