The concept of “consent culture” emerged from the sex positive movement of the 1980s and 90s. It was a response to the concept of “rape culture”, a term that had been coined to describe the experience that many people—especially women, queer and trans people—have of sexual violence and harassment. Consent culture aims to create a society where mutual respect, communication, and consent are the norms in all interactions. This concept has also been applied to current training approaches around sexual health and sexuality.

The idea of consent culture is fundamental to harm reduction in many ways because harm reduction, like consent culture, is based on the idea that every person is an autonomous individual who should have complete control over their own body. This pertains obviously to sexual activity, but it also pertains to drug use. Consent culture also maintains the idea that people retain the ability to give or retract consent at any time during any interaction. Harm reduction equally maintains the idea that people retain the right to give or retract consent to services, to drug use, and/or to other behavior.

One model of consent that is quite popular is “CRISP”. CRISP (C=Considered, R=Reversible, I=Informed, S=Specific, P=Participatory) is an acronym that embodies the fundamentals of consent culture.

CRISP asserts that consent should be Considered, and that the individual considers their choices and understands that they’re making a choice; that the choice be Reversible—meaning that they can at any time retract consent; Informed—meaning that they understand the choices they’re making and the consequences of them; Specific—meaning that it’s specific to their circumstance and not in general; and finally Participatory—which means that they enthusiastically participate and aren’t just passively giving in to a behavior or activity.