Elizabeth Smart Instagram – After I was rescued from being kidnapped I didn’t want to speak about what happened with anyone, I wanted to hide those nine months away, and pretend they didn’t happen. Even though my head knew none of it was my fault my heart still felt embarrassment and shame over the vast amounts of sexual abuse I experienced. At the time I didn’t know anyone else who openly shared they had been raped or violated, and no one took the time to explain to me that there is a difference between sexual abuse/rape versus enthusiastic consenting intimacy. Since then I experienced more life, fell in love, got married, had a family, and learned that rape and true intimacy couldn’t be more different. This partnership with @mentionables is so important to me on a personal level, because I don’t want any other person to go through being raped and assaulted thinking it is the same as consenting intimacy. When engaging in physical intimacy I want people everywhere to realize the day and night difference, to feel safe, empowered, beautiful, sexy, and excited to engage with their partner instead of fear, lack of control, pain, danger, betrayal, or self loathing. Being able to enjoy every aspect of consenting relationships should be a basic human right. Being able to enhance romantic and passionate situations should be encouraged and embraced, and for me that means beautiful and sexy lingerie. Mentionables aligns perfectly with my thoughts and feelings around intimacy and they will be generously donating 20% of sales from the teal collection to @elizabethsmartfoundation where everything we do is to help prevent what happened to me from happening to anyone else, as well as trying to educate and promote more compassion within communities on how to respond to survivors sharing their stories.