Snakes actually are known for their elaborate sex lives. Courtship across the entire suborder is typically a lengthy affair with great effort displayed by the males and it usually involves lots of chin-rubbing, quivering, coiling, parallel slithering, and jerking movements. Pelvic spurs are even used to tactically stimulate females in the primitive families that still retain evidence of their hind limbs. Courtship can last hours, even weeks in some species, and the act of copulation itself can be an equally lengthy affair.

A nerve-filled clitoris is fairly likely to have arisen (and like the courtship behaviors, may actually be rather ancestral to all modern snakes) due to sexual selection by females. Competition between males can be fierce and it is quite common among the group for multiple males to congregate and compete directly for access to just one female.