VERBBLE(s)

My post yesterday on Pieter Hugo reminded me of this one. The images while disturbing also felt very manly, in the classical sense of taming and controlling what is wild and doing so with near mythic fearlessness. Although not a pretty term, and one that can engender both positive and negative reactions, I feel safe using it as it was created by a man who is now a priest and uses it still.

Cock - to embody or display enormous and occasionally enviable amounts of masculinity, but never to the point of self-parody.

While the counterpoint or extreme is...

Fire - to display enormously unenviable amounts of masculinity to the point of self-parody.

For example

Those guys with the hyenas cock, while Bas Rutten fires.
Sam Shepard cocks and Steven Seagal fires.
Bullitt cocked; Dirty Harry fired.

Due to its subjective nature and changes regarding the ideal of manhood, someone or something that at one time cocked may, upon later review, be determined to have fired.

For example

As a child I believed Robert Conrad cocked, but it's obvious now that he fired.