As the Jodi Arias trial begins to wind down, the real story in court has become less about the gruesome killing of her ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander, and almost entirely focused on graphic sex.
A photographer from California, Arias is charged with the the grisly first-degree murder of her ex-boyfriend Alexander in June 2008, in which she allegedly stabbed the then 27-year-old man 27 times, slit his throat, shot him in the head and left his bloodied corpse crumpled over in his bathroom shower.
Arias' fate depends on whether the jury believes she was a jilted lover exacting jealous revenge, as the prosecution argues, or if she killed Alexander in self-defense, as she contends, but you wouldn't know it from following the trial.
Arguments for both sides have endlessly obsessed over the wealth of explicit sexual evidence. The defense has poured through the smut hoping to portray Arias as an innocent girl who got caught up with a twisted man with a "nearly-predatory sex drive," the prosecution arguing she was complicit in - and even initiated - the acts she claims she was coerced into. The prosecution and defense have already discussed and played hours of raunchy phone sex conversations, and displayed emails and text messages with images of genitalia, and Arias has spent over 15 days on the stand meticulously describing her and Alexander's sexual fantasies and kinks. She testified for nine days without even mentioning the killing.
Defense attorney Kirk Nurmi started out Tuesday once again striking the same salacious note. This time, his questions centered on the topic of anal sex, and how Arias introduced Alexander to K-Y personal lubricant.
"There were several reasons [I used it]," Arias explained, according to The Huffington Post. "The main reason being that some of the activities that he wanted to do were painful without it and he was not willing to go to the store and buy it."
"Anal sex was not a passion of yours, is that correct?" Nurmi asked.
"It had never been a regular part of my sex life," Arias claimed.
Arias' lawyers have portrayed her as an innocent, naive, devout Mormon who was sexually exploited by an often sadistic and violent Alexander. Much of the defense's case rests on this portrait of Alexander. Arias has testified throughout the trial about her lover's supposed double life: a devout Mormon virgin on the surface, but a "sexually deviant" abusive control freak underneath. Alexander's friends contend the version of him presented in court by the defense is nothing like the man they knew, but Arias has consistently claimed the couple had a volatile relationship, and that Alexander was possibly a pedophile who was "emotionally detached."
After a lengthy discussion on the merits of K-Y, the judge announced that jurors had submitted over 100 questions that will be asked to the alleged murderer on their behalf Wednesday. As ABC noted, "Arizona is one of three states that allow jurors to pose questions to witnesses after prosecution and defense lawyers have finished their questioning."
Jurors likely have many questions in light of Arias' varying versions of events, and supposedly "spotty" memory of the day she killed Alexander, which she claims she can hardly remember. Arias has already admitted to lying about Alexander's death to just about everyone. She first claimed she was never at Alexander's home the day he was killed, then she invented the masked intruder angle, and finally she backtracked to admit she killed the victim, but claimed it was in self-defense, as he attacked her in the shower, forcing her to fight for her life. She claims she lied so often because she was "ashamed" she killed Alexander in self-defense and because she was afraid of revealing the details of their sexual relationship.
Prosecuting attorney Juan Martinez has pounced repeatedly on Arias throughout the trial for the numerous inconsistencies in her stories, and seemingly convenient memory loss of the most important aspect of the trial, sniping that it was interesting her memory of killing Alexander was so spotty, yet you "can tell us what kind of coffee you bought at Starbucks sometime back in 2008."
Arias faces the death penalty if convicted, the Associated Press reported. The trial resumes for the 54th day Wednesday at 3 p.m. EST when Arias will be asked the jury's questions.
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