The reality – two conflicting reports suggested on Sunday – may be rather less sensational and not at all at one with Putin's virile image: while one claimed he had gone down with the flu, another suggested he had been suffering from back trouble.
The energy and vitality of those sexy, hard-living abstract expressionists, with their virile paintings of soaked and splashed colour, promised to seal the deal of art's future.
But if the girls are putting it about, it is better to be virile and dim, than impotent and smart.
No matter the wonky subject, voters saw somebody who unites or reconciles.Mr Steinbrück tends to whip or beat with his hands, to point with his finger as though piercing something with a needle, or to emphasise his arguments by making a virile fist.
For a territory of just 6.3m, this is quite a virile feat and a highly implausible one, say the government's critics.The threat of these putative hordes swamping the territory straining social services, stealing jobs and daily reminding Hong Kong wives of their husbands' infidelities has brought to a head a growing constitutional crisis.
Still, the fact remains that France's fertility is now higher than America's and the demographic reaction to the great recession does not suggest any profound transatlantic difference between virile Americans and flaccid Europeans.
And while never actually fostering it, he has basked shamelessly in the myth that bald men are somehow smarter and more virile than their hairier brethren.
Thirty years ago, at the height of the sexual revolution, an American historian observed famously that a Caravaggio painting of a boy bitten by a lizard must depict homosexuality because the adolescent's reaction "suggests a womanish whimper rather than a virile shout".
Worse still, it has encouraged the belief that "bulls" are virile, astute investors, whereas a bear market is so named because, when bears wake up after their winter hibernation, they are grouchy and bad-tempered.
Even if the measure clears the Commons and many Labour MPs are deeply attached to the virile simplicity of FPTP it is unlikely to make it through the Lords before the looming general election.
