Five men had committed an unbearable collective violation. All filmed, there are images. Behind their backs to the word of the raped, the judges have not seen the rape and have considered it a sexual assault, leaving the five free. What happened?

It reminds me of the case of Rodney King, an African-American man killed by the police in 1991 in a very violent way. The indicted police officers were convicted. This is the same for Manada's rapists. These images are observed in a frame that is associated with an ideology, a representation in which the body of a woman is considered as an object sexually accessible to men, violently manipulable and violently violable. In the judgment of the flocks, it must be decided whether the gestures of the woman were actually defended by the violation, whether or not they could be interpreted as an approval to show their rejection. It is a gesture of extreme, social and patriarchal brutality.

I can't be clearer and... In the end, everything is interpretation.

We don't have raw images, we always have a medium, and this medium is ideology. The trial of the Herds is part of the judicial framework of a State involved in the reproduction of sexism. In this sense, the interpretation of the dominator will always prevail.

The judges have been faced with the admission of the case.

It is a reflection of the intensity of this power relationship, the woman's body is not perceived in resistance, they do not represent defense. Surviving, saving is our ultimate self-defense at the time of rape, we can do nothing but keep ourselves alive! But, because we have a very heroic view of resistance, it should have acted like a hero, it should have had super powers to fight, and precisely because it has not done so it has acknowledged. It's not that: he hasn't done it, but that doesn't mean he recognized it, he was in a form of self-defense and at that moment he was in the emergency of survival.

The case of Rodney King is wrapped up in a painting in which the black body is violent and threatening. The case of the Flocks, in a box where the woman's body is accessible and violable.

The issue of sexual availability is fundamental in the normative definition of being a woman and in the perception of the woman. The body is considered female from the moment it is socially accessible. It does not mean that women accept it, it means that they have no choice, their social being imposes on them. Therefore, within the context of feminist resistance, we are revealing contrary norms and opposite positions; specifically, to counteract this idea, to make us aware that the basis of sexual accessibility is totally imposed, forced and the result of a power relationship.

Surviving, running away, fighting, freeing the word, they're all forms of self-defense and you don't make hierarchies.

If we start to hierarchize, we are a human trend in which self-defense should be a heroic rebellion. If we look at the movements that have self-defense as a philosophy, we realize that the only definition that can be associated with self-defense is to ‘save one’s life’. There are many tactics to save one's own life. To flee is to save oneself, although in him, marked by humanity, be considered as a coward. However, we know that flight throughout history has been a practice of self-defense to life and death. Just as there are no limits to fleeing, there are no limits to the use of violence, because sometimes it is the only way to save extreme violence. I have no moral opinion on the use of extreme violence for self-defence, that is, to save one's own life.

It's becoming, a philosophy of violence, its latest book is about violence. There are bodies that defend, others that do not defend.

The official story is the story of legitimate defense. It is linked to a natural right of self-care and, within modern states, this important right has been transferred to the State. States have a lawful use of violence to ensure the security of citizens. In urgent cases, if the threat is immediate, the citizens are left with the right to self-defence. But when it comes to making history of state law, we are aware that those who feel fully citizens have to say that when they leave this right, they are considered second-rate, because they do not have the support of the state. Moreover, the State has disarmed them; keeping them out of citizenship means keeping them without defense. The slaves are disarmed, the women are disarmed, the cultural minorities are disarmed, the armaments practices of the working class are continuously controlled.

In the case of Manada, the difference that has been defended is evident.

Of course, we have a state that defends violadores.Tenemos a state that disarms women, which not only dislearns to fight through socialisation, but also disarm in the face of justice, this woman has no way of defending herself at all. What is more, the only way to defend it is for all of this to be considered normal.

Women have gotten us into the bones and told us that we can't be violent and that if we have them, we don't have strength.

That's right. The problem is not that we haven't learned to fight, the problem is that we've been deconstructed to fight. We've been beheaded by our body, we've been beheaded by the security and confidence of what we're strong, and we've become powerless. They have told us that we are not capable and that, in any case, if we take the step of using violence, they will punish us as crazy, hysterical or as monsters.

That force has also transformed us from fear. How do we get fear to respond or become rage?

Fear is there, and it's not about not being afraid or transforming fear. Power relations are so terrible, that we are rightly afraid. The real question is this: How do we make sense of this fear? Will that fear be coded as a feeling that will aggravate us, as a sign of powerlessness and weakness, or, on the contrary, will make us relive our body's consciousness and feel the need to do something and flee? That is very important. Yes, fear is there and everything is done to focus that feeling, but besides fear, there are many other feelings. The thing is, we overvalue fear, because power leads us to it. It's another way of saying, "Don't move, kill you, I'll hit you." In reality, besides fear there are many other emotions: anger, indignation, the feeling of injustice, complaint, excitement...

These feelings, apparently, are also present.

In addition, we note that after the aggression within the framework of a sexist, racist or classicist relationship (the three have been united), often “I should have done that...”, “why I have not answered that...”, we think. This feeling of guilt is a reflection that when being attacked, besides fear, there was anger. Maybe it's a sign that we could go through an eye or break a leg. We have to work that fear, we have to look at the entire affective picture. We have to make politics through the body, bind ourselves to the body and politicize the affections so that the body becomes a weapon of self-defense.

Attend and respond to what the muscle says.

Of course, if we could hear all the inner affections, we couldn't stop! Deep down, seeing the ongoing attacks, I don't understand how we don't burn and break everything. I'm serious.

He has also included a novel in the genealogy of self-defense. Dirty Weekend and more specifically, Bella.

It's a novel within radical feminist culture that talks about extreme violence. Working on this book, I wanted to work a phenomenology, I wanted to analyze that experience of moving on to violence. Helen Zahaví's story is interesting, but I wanted to know how the body can be constructed politically in order to move on to feminist self-defense. Violence hinders us and the question that can be asked is not “is it violence?” or “should we use violence?”, but “what do we do with this violence?”

You explain with the notion of “negative care” that instead of listening to our body we are listening to the dominator.

Bodies exposed to death are hunting bodies that permanently face predatory power. One of the characteristics of this life is to develop excessive attention to others when we are in the position of prey, to know what is going to do to us, what is going to happen to us, what violence we are going to suffer. In feminism, attention to the other is traditionally considered an element associated with the socio-historical situation of women, in which women are directed to care. That's true and it's true, but in care, we don't have just that. Husband or partner care is not just a form of loving empathy. When the couple is violent, that surveillance is there, because the violent attitude of the couple is there. Because it will touch, maybe even death, because dinner is cold, because it is tired or because it has not received what it expects. To avoid blows and violence, I am so careful with the dominator, that I completely disconnected myself from my needs, from my feelings, from my world. This is a long list of justification for the violence of the other. It is fundamental that the knowledge and consciousness of what is worked is articulated to the care of oneself. If this is not done, we are in justification and denial, in negative vigilance.

Isn't it a form of self-defense?

Of course. But self-defense is not only the establishment of defenses, but also the rescue of one's own life. Denials or concessions are psychic defenses, because the situation is excessive and you have to survive on a daily basis. That's defense. In self-defense he is added the “auto” of giving himself in the center. Not in a form of individualism, but in a form of self-politicization. As I go through “it has not been bad, it has done nothing wrong” to “this is not to bind, this gets me inadvertently, it hurts, I can’t else, it’s impossible”, we get into self-defense.

The road has to be made and it can be long. It seems that without a feminist conscience that path is not found.

It goes through the body, the body tells you it's not normal. You've got your hands sweating. If you reconnect to your body, if you're a body, your body tells you it's not normal. When you’re on the street, if they say “whore” or “pretty”, you’ll have muscle contractions, you’ll feel uncomfortable, lots of sensations will tell you that it’s not normal. What I am saying is that we need to politicise all of that. We don't need a feminist awareness, we don't have to reflect for many hours on some issues. That is all very well, but in the end it is not enough. I believe that we must politicise muscle, the moment when muscles contract tells us that the situation is not fair; that moment is political and we must stick to it.

A collective response has been given to the Manada movement, calling for feminist self-defense. A prominent example of the “solidarity policy” you mention.

Solidarity goes through the solidarity of bodies; my feminism is that of feminist self-defense. The bases are found in anarchofeminism, anarchism, radicality. We've always practiced self-defense, politicizing violence and, of course, going through feminist awareness. Feminist awareness not only goes through words, but it also guides feminist awareness, learning together, from the body, politicizing rabies, expressing rabies with words or bodies. As far as power relations are concerned, we are in a situation of crisis and I sincerely believe that the borders of other political strategies (to leave it to the State, to speak, to denounce, to claim …) are in sight. To end the patriarchy, we have to incarnate together and extend feminist self-defense to the four winds.