Steven: Mormon murder victim Travis Alexander thought you could get around the rules if you have sex with non-vaginal orifices. I think it’s amusing that any religious person could imagine that mouth sex and butt sex are genuine loopholes around religious sexual abstinence rules.
The murder trial of Jodi Arias has been filled with salacious details of phone sex, graphic text messages, and an erotic sexual relationship between her and her devout Mormon ex-boyfriend, Travis Alexander.
Arias, 32, converted to Mormonism when she began to date Alexander, then 29, in 2006. Though they were both outwardly devout, they immediately developed a sexual relationship.
The trial has cast a spotlight on the tight-knit Mormon community in Mesa, Ariz., and its strict social mores, including a ban on premarital sex. According to Patrick Mason, a professor of religion who specializes in Mormon studies at Claremont Graduate University in California, the trial shows the difficulty Mormons face in coping wiith the church’s demand for chastity.
“The LDS church puts a really high priority on complete chastity,” Mason said. “They define that as no sexual relations of any kind outside of marriage between a man and a woman, no premarital sex and no extramarital sex either, and there’s actually a lot of time and attention paid to this.”
Arias is on trial for murdering Alexander, whom she dated for a year and then continued to have sex with for a year after that. Prosecutors allege she killed him in a fit of jealousy in June 2008, after taking graphic sexual photos with him and having sex earlier in the day.
Arias claims she shot and stabbed Alexander in self defense, and her attorneys have focused on Alexander’s secret sex life as proof that he was a “sexual deviant” who was abusive and controlling toward Arias.They claim Alexander, who was considered a church elder, kept Arias his “dirty little secret” because sex outside of marriage was against church rules.
In my experience, Mormons live up to their religion more than any other religious group I know.
Alex Trivunovic: “I don’t think they genuinely think that. They just want to rationalise bad behaviour. Like evangelical women who spend their 20’s fucking everything that moves, then calling themselves ‘spiritual virgins’ once they want to settle down. Though, who knows, there are a lot of dumb people. Maybe some of them really believe it.”
Steven Ben-Off Abrams: “Well, certainly Travis Alexander did not deserve to die horribly for being a douchebag, but it seems that his bizarre rationalizations to reconcile extramarital sex and Mormon faith contributed to his crazy mistress Jodi Arias’ murderous freakout. Not to say he is in any way responsible for his own death, but he was imposing an unjustified mindfuck on the girl.”
