Let me tell you what I think about Conor McGregor and Nikita Hand. Nobody has to agree with me, but let me tell you what I think.
I think he viewed her with utter contempt, this lovely young lady from working class Dublin who hadn’t made it quite as big as he did, and who spent the evening of her Christmas party – all parties agree – sending him messages on Instagram, maybe feeling confident in herself, all decked out for her Christmas do in her outfit that she doubtless chose very carefully.
She was seeking his attention – just like that which he has received from hundreds if not thousands of other women, looking, as he sees it, for the thrill of attention from The Notorious. I think she bothered him. That he had no respect for her, or her need for his attention.
I think he had decided what he thought she was before he even met her that night, in December 2018. Just another desperate, needy girl. Just another woman eager for a piece of him. I think he didn’t even feel the need to ask her if she wanted it, because to him, girls like that all do. Why else are they messaging him on Instagram all night?
And so he gave it to her. Good and hard. Athletically. In various positions. Fun, as he told his trial, was had by all. And if she doesn’t like it now, or regrets it, that’s on her.
We are of course supposed to ignore, those of us men supposed to be outraged on McGregor’s behalf, the girlfriend and children at home. What is a man like McGregor to do, when these desperate needy girls are throwing themselves at him? What does it matter if he utterly humiliated his partner? He’s a man with needs, is he not?
And indeed, we all have needs and impulses to some degree or other. That much is true. But we also, more to the point, have responsibilities to other people. The duty to treat people we encounter with care, and respect. I am not preaching, nor do I pretend to the moral authority to preach, sexual ethics here. But we do have a duty, whatever those ethics might be, to treat people like human beings, and not objects.
I was taken, during the trial, by McGregor’s testimony of that night. He had spent most of it in the company of other women, in a nightclub. Cocaine and alcohol had been consumed. Then those women – perhaps inconveniently – buggered off home. So McGregor takes to his phone, and there’s Nikita Hand. Messaging him. Demanding his attention. And I think he decided, like many’s a person in a nightclub through the years: You’ll do.
I do not think that Nikita Hand was a person to Conor McGregor that night so much as she was a thing – a toy. A tool for his entertainment. Her job was to provide flattery for his ego, and a release if necessary for his sexual urges. That’s what she wanted, after all – else why was she texting him photos of herself?
I do not think it really matters here as to whether the McGregor jury was right or wrong in their ultimate assessment of what happened that night. The testimony heard by the court certainly revealed inconsistencies in her own account – a jumbled memory, and some apparent warmth towards Mssrs McGregor and Lawrence after the alleged events had taken place. The medical evidence, by contrast, was compelling. Those who treated Ms Hand in the days after the events gave accounts of her injuries that are very hard to explain by simply “athletic” sex. Mr McGregor’s DNA was found inside her, as was a tampon, wedged so deep that it had to be extracted by forceps.
Now here’s a question: If Ms Hand consented, as we are told she did, why didn’t she remove the tampon? There are two explanations for that, the first being that she didn’t consent, and the second one – the only one that exonerates McGregor of rape – is the explanation that she was so drunk and high and out of it that she forgot it was there. Assume, for a moment, that the second explanation was true. Now ask yourself what you think of Mr. McGregor under the terms of his own evidence.
In Mr. Lawrences’s account – decisively rejected by the jury – Hand was so up for it that she proceeded to have sex with him twice after she had been raped. He himself – according to his own account – had had sex with Danielle Healy three times before. Five times that afternoon, between them, these two women had called on him to provide service. That was his evidence.
They can’t get enough of Mr. Lawrence, these girls. That’s what he wanted the jury to believe. The jurors took a look at him on the stand and decided that they didn’t believe him.
McGregor is – and despite the verdict of the jury will remain – a hero to many young Irish men. Those men, I think, aspire to be like him. To have cash. And success. And a don’t-give-a-fuck attitude. To say what he thinks. To take what he wants. To live the life of a modern-day Conan the Barbarian and drive his enemies before him. To be, in essence, distilled testosterone.
I understand the appeal, of course. Every man, though some of us might lie about it, understands the appeal.
What I know, though, is that this is ultimately all uncontrolled egotism. The self is the only thing that matters. The measures of one’s success are no longer whether people like you, but about what you have. The Rolls Royce. The bejeweled, conventionally pretty, arm candy. The attention of needy women. The jealousy of other men. The impunity to snort coke and drink till all hours and then go home and be serviced.
But this is not masculinity. None of us are perfect, and there is no perfect example to live up to. But if you ask me, true masculinity lies in being principled, reliable, and consistent. The best examples are to be found in men like my own father, who takes his value in his work and doing a job well, and pride in what he has provided for others. He is not perfect – nobody is – but I’d damn sure sooner be like him than I’d be like Mr. McGregor.
The Internet is full these days of a certain kind of male influencer telling young men that the world is against them. Not all of that is a lie – much of it is the truth, in fact. But the answer to that is not to make war on the world or stop being a good bloke. If all of us decided tomorrow to live like Conan the Barbarian, society would fall apart just as soon as it would if masculinity was extinguished altogether.
But what is masculinity, if not the desire and need to protect? When you encounter a vulnerable woman, after a long night of partying and drug-taking, who maybe isn’t in a position to remember everything (this lack of memory being central to McGregor’s case) what do you do? Do you protect her, or do you subject her to a marathon bout of vigorous, athletic, physical sex that leaves her bruised (his evidence) and then retroactively justify it based on your claim that she consented.
Even if she did, does that make you a good guy, or does it make you a first-class prick? The latter, is the answer.
Nikita Hand is a human being, with feelings and emotions and hopes and dreams and desires of her own. We do not need to infantilise her to recognise that at minimum, she was owed a duty of care by Conor McGregor. Even if you think she herself made some bad decisions over that fateful 24 hours (and as it happens I do) that does not negate his duty to be a decent man.
In his own telling – his own evidence – he used her for athletic, rough, all-consuming physical sex and then went home to sleep, leaving her there with his mate. Who, his case then was, said mate had two rounds with as well. With a tampon wedged inside her, and considerable bruising. After three bouts of sex with another woman.
This is what the jury was expected to believe. They did not. Rightly, in my view.
Yet even if you disagree with the verdict, there is no excusing McGregor’s treatment of Nikita Hand under the version of events he himself claims exonerates him. He treated her like a thing, not a human being. She wasn’t even a person to him. Call it rape. Call it rough sex. Call her a gold-digger. Say she wanted it. Make whatever excuses you want.
His behaviour was that of a rotten scumbag, and if you wish to defend it, you should know what it is you’re defending.
That’s what I think.