Once the frontrunner to succeed President Thabo Mbeki, Mr Zuma told the Johannesburg High Court how he had sex with a 31-year-old woman, an old family friend, at his Johannesburg home five months ago after she asked him for a massage.
Speaking in his native Zulu language, Mr Zuma recounted how he gave her a full body massage and removed the cloth that she was wearing. "She did not have any objection," he said.
He said he was devastated when he later learned that she had laid a rape charge against him, and sent her aunts to talk to her. They suggested that he marry her.
"(They said) it looks like there is a love relationship here, they asked... would it not be better for lobola negotiations to be instituted," Mr Zuma said, referring to the African custom of payment to the father of the bride.
"The lobola issue was discussed at length and they asked me if I would do it. I said to them, if that's her wish. I have no problem with starting negotiations if she was happy with that."
The court also heard about his role in the struggle against apartheid and his relationship with the alleged victim's father, who was also a veteran of the African National Congress (ANC).
Lawyers representing Mr Zuma failed last week to win an early dismissal of the case, with Judge Willem van der Merwe dismissing arguments that the evidence furnished by the state was not solid.
The defence has attacked the credibility of the alleged victim, who took the stand about four weeks ago testifying that she was paralysed with fear when Mr Zuma entered the guest bedroom where she was sleeping and raped her.
The judge also questioned the defence's arguments that the rape charge was part of a plot to end Mr Zuma's political career.
The ruling ANC split into pro-Mbeki and pro-Zuma factions after the president fired Mr Zuma in a major corruption scandal last June.
Mr Zuma, who will go on trial on two graft charges in a separate case in July, has said that the corruption case is part of a political conspiracy to prevent him from succeeding Mr Mbeki when he steps down in 2009.