A significant issue with respect to rape shield laws in intimate partner sexual abuse cases is admission of photographs, videos, web blogs and other social media claimed by the defense to depict consensual sex and show that the complainant enjoyed the activities complained of. Recall the case described in Module VI, Institutional Responses, Prosecutor Response, in which a husband forced his wife to be videotaped simulating a sex act with a cucumber and demanded that she look like she was enjoying it. Had that case gone to trial, the defendant would likely have tried to have this video admitted.

In Jones v. State, 348 Ark. 619, 74 S.W. 3d 663 (2002) the defendant in a marital rape prosecution sought to introduce photographs of his estranged wife masturbating and engaging with him in oral and anal sex and anal sex with a dildo. He claimed that these photographs were essential "to refute the allegations against him that he forced the victim to engage in deviate sexual acts." The prosecutor argued that the photographs were not relevant to the victim's consent on the night of the rape. The judge held an in camera hearing and ruled that the photographs would be admissible if the victim denied engaging in the acts in question, but otherwise not, even if she claimed that she had done so unwillingly. The victim acknowledged engaging in all the acts depicted but claimed that it was without consent. In affirming the defendant's conviction, the Arkansas Supreme Court noted, in words generally applicable to consideration of rape shield issues:

"The purpose of our rape-shield statute...is to shield victims of rape or sexual abuse from the humiliation of having their personal conduct, unrelated to the charges pending, paraded before the jury and the public when such conduct is irrelevant to the defendant's guilt.... The rape-shield statute prohibits admission of evidence of a victim's prior sexual conduct, unless such conduct pertains to the act upon which the prosecution is based.... Prior acts of sexual conduct are not within themselves evidence of consent in a subsequent sexual act; there must be some additional evidence connecting such prior acts to the alleged consent in the present case before the prior acts become relevant.... However, even such relevant evidence is not admissible unless the trial court, in an in camera hearing, makes a written determination that the probative value of the evidence outweighs its inflammatory or prejudicial nature.... The trial court is vested with a great deal of discretion in ruling whether the victim's prior sexual conduct is relevant…."

— 219 348 Ark. at 628, citations omitted.