By Emma Atkinson 

Hello lovely readers! It must be spring — robins seem to be everywhere, don’t they?  

Planned Parenthood developed the FRIES model of good consent that we’ve been pondering in recent editions of this amazing newsletter. It’s time to consider the final letter in the acronym, and that’s the letter S, and that stands for school, which rhymes with pool, and that’s big trouble! Oops, sorry for the inexplicable reference to The Music Man. Our S actually stands for Specific, which makes way more sense.  

Good consent is specific. All participants agree that x, y, and z will happen. As long as x, y, and z occur, all participants will likely have a wonderful experience. If at any point v happens, you’d be well advised to pause activities and get more information. Assuming good intentions, there’s lots of valid reasons that activity v could be brought into play. Who hasn’t been swept away in the heat of a moment to do things one later regrets? An ounce of conversation is so much better than a pound of regrets. Or, maybe it’s just me.  

Homework: please remember FRIES when embarking on consent conversations. And share your thoughts and experiences with us at: info@thecspc.org.

“Be excellent to each other.” —Bill and Ted

“Be sexcellent to each other.” —Emma