FRIES is a five-part standard for valid consent created by Planned Parenthood — Freely given, Reversible, Informed, Enthusiastic, and Specific — defining the conditions under which agreement counts as genuine consent.
FRIES is a widely taught affirmative-consent framework that defines when agreement to a sexual activity qualifies as real consent. It is used in sex education and adapted within kink and 📝consent culture. Each letter names a property that must hold for consent to be valid; if any one is absent, the consent is compromised.
How It Works
- F — Freely given — offered without coercion, pressure, manipulation, or impairment.
- R — Reversible — able to be withdrawn at any moment, for any reason.
- I — Informed — based on honest, complete information, including disclosures such as STI status and what an act involves.
- E — Enthusiastic — a genuine, wanted yes, not merely the absence of a no.
- S — Specific — agreement to one act is not agreement to another.
Why It Matters
FRIES reframes consent from a one-time gate into a set of live conditions, making it easier to recognize when apparent agreement is actually coerced, uninformed, or assumed. Its emphasis on reversibility and specificity directly counters the notion that a single yes authorizes everything that follows.
Related
- 📝TEASE — a BDSM-specific extension that operationalizes these conditions during play.
- 📝BDSMR — a pre-intimacy checklist that puts informed, specific consent into practice.