Those steamy voice mails, raunchy text messages and X-rated pictures?

Why, they were for the ladies, of course.

So says the Windy City wacko who's on trial for swamping Ashanti's mom with revolting messages and images he hoped would romance the R&B singer.

"That's sex texting, for the ladies," Devar Hurd explained. "She welcomed it."

The 31-year-old man took the stand Friday in Manhattan Supreme Court, where he is on trial for swamping the Long Island star's manager-mom, Tina Douglas, with lurid calls and texts.

Alternately describing himself as a music company executive, a singer, a car salesman, a model and a real estate investor, Hurd calmly explained to jurors that many of his "lady friends" welcomed the images of him pleasuring himself.

"I have this lady friend in L.A., and she likes this kind of stuff," he said.

Douglas, he insisted, was no different because she never demanded that he knock it off and only once swore at him.

"This is the thing, she welcomed the messages," he said. "She never tell me to stop, see?"

Hurd frequently peppered his testimony with "yada, yada, yada," and at one point rapped a few lines from the Snoop Dogg hit "Drop It Like It's Hot" while trying to explain a picture he sent Douglas of Ashanti squatting in hot pants.

"She has on these little shorts," Hurd said. "This is for the fellas."

The hip-hop hustler explained how a fleeting encounter with Ashanti at a 2003 Chicago concert convinced him they had a "connection."

"We had strong eye contact, and I'm like, 'Oh, I need to get in contact with her,'" he said.

Hurd's pursuit of stardom then led him to sing into an answering machine for Irv Gotti, until a member of the music honcho's posse leaked him a number for Douglas.

"I was like, 'Hey, wazzup, Tina?'" Hurd said.

The singer's mom rarely resisted his calls, Hurd said. Asked if Douglas "liked" him, Hurd didn't hesitate.

"Yep," he said.

Hurd said he also sent pictures of naked women to Ashanti's dad, Kincaid, but drew the line at sending him pictures of his own genitalia.

"He don't want that," said Hurd, who faces up to two years in prison if convicted of aggravated harassment. "That's for the ladies."