Clockwise or counter looking at the panel?

I apologize for the stupid quesion but I have a set of MIT interconnects with locking RCA's that I a trying to remove. When I installed them, I only tightened by hand but now when trying to remove them they don't budge either way. I was going to take the pliers to them but didn't want to tighten them further by accident. I assume counter clockwise (that being how most things unscrew)but it didn't work by hand....

Help