Slug Love.

This is how banana slugs do it.

JULIET

Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day:
It was the nightingale, and not the lark,
That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear;
Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate-tree:
Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.

ROMEO

It was the lark, the herald of the morn,
No nightingale: look, love, what envious streaks
Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east:
Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.
I must be gone and live, or stay and die.

Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet

Act 3, Scene 5

These two slugs were at it for over forty-eight hours. I stopped checking on them after two days because I didn’t think that the flash photography was helping much with the mood they were trying to set. Plus, I started to feel like a pervert. I’m still conflicted about posting pictures of their lovemaking on the internet. I wonder if there’s any such thing as internet slug porn? I guess there is now.

Banana slugs are the second-largest terrestrial species of slug in the world. They’re hermaphrodites, by the way, which means each slug produces both eggs and sperm. Curling up as they do allows them to exchange sperm so that each of their respective clutches of eggs can be fertilized. Makes that yin yang positioning seem all the more appropriate, if you ask me.

Slime and all, they're beautiful creatures. With a nod to J. D. Salinger, every day is a perfect day for banana slugs.