Lemon

Lemon is a term from anime fandom used to designate a work with explicit erotic content. The term derives from an early pornographic anime/hentai from the 80s called Cream Lemon. A piece of fanfiction which includes the word 'lemon' in its title can be expected to be pure porn; others might warn that a work contains "a hint of lemon" or lime. 
While still most prevalent within anime fandom, the term "lemon" (and other associated citrus fruits) has since become established as a pan-fandom code for various types of smut, particularly as sites like Fanfiction.net and Tumblr have cracked down on adult content. Most recently, it experienced a resurgence on Tumblr following the NSFW Content Purge of late 2018.
==Usage Throughout Time==
===Early Usage===
TV Tropes has this to say about the spread and usage of "lemon" and related terms over time:
In the late 90s/early 2000s, the term Sekkushiaru Roman came into use for the overtly romantic style of lemon.Comment by UltraBooster, Reddit. 'It says something about Morag when the first lemon fic ever written of the game is about her', Posted December 7, 2017 (Accessed February 2, 2019).
"Lemon" and "lime" were defined in a glossary on WhiteCat's World in 2000:
 
It was occasionally used in the early Newsies fandom, as evidenced by a work from circa 2001 on Seize The Night.Harpers Creek by Niko at Seize The Night
===Early 2010s and Fanfiction.net===
Many fans date their first encounter with the concept of "lemon" to 2012 (or believe the concept originated in 2012), pointing to a potential resurgence at that time which could be linked to Fanfiction.net's second major purge of NC-17 content which took place in that year.
The humorous Tumblr post "I feel like fandom generations are both very specific and easily conflated.", published in December 2018, included a generation dubbed "Citrus Cheesecake" (in between "I was there Gandalf" and "Archive of Our Saviours"). Some of the defining traits of this "generation" were listed as "DeviantArt and ff.net" and "“more of a lime than a lemon >//< but also kind of just a lemon with fluff?”"
Additionally, the subsequent generation "Archive of Our Saviours" included the traits "ratings that had nothing to do with fruit" "(thank gods)".I feel like fandom generations are both very specific and easily conflated. by concerningwolves via Tumblr. Posted December 16, 2018 (Accessed February 6, 2019).
===2019 Tumblr Resurgence=== 
In early 2019, due to Tumblr blocking NSFW tags, some Tumblr users brought back #lemon and other citrus terms to tag their NSFW content instead.
==The Citrus Scale==
While "lemon" on its own was the most widespread term, fans developed a range of variant terms to describe different levels of explicit content contained within their stories, all oriented around citrus fruits. The definitions of these can vary, either because fans' recollections are unclear or because there were different conventions used by different groups of fans. This system has become collectively known as 'the citrus scale'.
Lemon and lime, used to refer to explicit sex and to "smutty" content that stops short of actual sex respectively, were the most widespread and their definitions the most widely-recalled and agreed upon. Fans disagree, however, as to which other fruits make up the Citrus Scale (if any) and whether these terms were really used by fans or just existed in theory.
From The Fanfiction Glossary:
From the Protectors of the Plot Continuum wiki:
In 2019 when the Citrus Scale began its resurgence on Tumblr, Tumblr user xChrononautx posted a "PSA" about the return to the citrus scale:
However, many horrified fans pushed back against this interpretation of the scale, insisting that orange represented very mild or non-sexual content:
After the post went viral (with many additions, corrections and recollections) xChromonautx posted a follow-up:
Pineapple has been used sparingly to describe particularly kinky sex, though this does not seem to have caught on as much as other terms. Google Groups: Dammit! Then again, I don't know what level your fic would count as. Lime - Ecchi Lemon - Plain ol' H fic. or Pineapple? - Hardcore stuff....or graphic pokemon sex X.x; It is possible the term comes from the hentai anime production company Pink Pineapple.
In 2020, the Organization for Transformative Works made a limited-edition sticker set featuring the Citrus Scale available as a thank-you gift for donations of $40 or more.Tweet by @Fanlore_News, April 25, 2020: Anyone else thrilled with the new OTW merch featuring the Citrus Scale? What a classic fandom throwback! If you wanna know more about the history of this early 2000s rating system in fandom, check out our Fanlore page! Accessed July 7, 2020.Tweet by @onlythosethings, April 25, 2020. Omgosh the citrus scale!!! Accessed July 7, 2020. The sticker set featured Orange, Lime, Lemon and Grapefruit.
==Lemon in Fan Communities==
Some fan communities or fan sites have particular associations with the term lemon and related terms, due to either being anime-centric or hosting a high proportion of anime fanworks. lemons_and_desiresRK is one example of a Rurouni Kenshin Yahoo! Group, focused on discussion of NSFW fanworks, that used "lemon" in its name.
Fanfiction archives that used the "citrus scale" included Noire Sensus and other sites that included both anime and western fandoms. 
===Quizilla===
The popular quiz site Quizilla, which was home to a great deal of anime and manga fanworks, had a long and involved history of using lemon-related terms to avoid having explicit fanworks removed from the site. 
After the site's official closure in 2014, a former Quizilla user created a Reddit thread to reminisce,I just learned that Quizilla is no longer around. Anyone else spend their tween years taking stupid quizzes?, Reddit. Posted November 13, 2014 (Accessed February 2, 2019). and many fans fondly remembered the use of "lemon" to denote smut.
In response, the original founder of Quizilla, Matthew Nielsen (aka xunker) weighed in with his personal recollection:
===AO3===
While "lemon" as a fan term evolved largely as a way to evade purges of explicit content on fan websites, making it unnecessary on a purposely inclusive site like AO3, the term is nevertheless used as a tag on a number of fanworks.
As of July 7, 2020, a tag search for "lemon" turns up 9,496 usesScreenshot of the tag page for AO3, taken while logged in on July 7, 2020. An archived snapshot of AO3 on the same date only shows 9,094 works, due to the omission of "locked" works that are only visible to logged-in users. in fandoms as diverse as Supernatural, Hey Arnold!, Undertale, The Hobbit and Venom.
The earliest snapshot of the lemon tag on the Wayback Machine, taken on July 6, 2010, shows just 7 works in the tag.Works tagged "lemon" on AO3, Wayback Machine. Snapshot taken July 6, 2010 (Accessed February 2, 2019). This is likely due to the much smaller number of works on AO3 at the time, but may also be because anime fandoms were less represented on AO3 in its early days. Fandoms containing fanworks with this tag in 2010 included Yu-Gi-Oh!, Gundam Wing, and Dragon Age: Origins.
===Wattpad===
Fans have recalled the Citrus Scale being widespread on Wattpad from the mid-2010s onwards, with some stating that the system has remained in active use up to the present.
===Tumblr===
The fandom community on Tumblr had little history of using the term "lemon" prior to early 2019. In the wake of the Tumblr NSFW Content Purge, Tumblr users realised that any post tagged "NSFW" or similar was being automatically flagged and removed, and so looked for another way to label smut and adult fanworks.Tumblr post by just-things-i-like-mostly, with the tag #so i have heard rumors about this thing called lemons. Posted January 29, 2019 (Accessed February 6, 2019). A number of users independently landed on the idea of reviving the "citrus scale" on Tumblr to avoid the site's filters.
It wasn't long before "lemon" was trending on Tumblr. Tumblr users who had been in fandom long enough to remember the Citrus Scale reacted with a mixture of glee and horror.
[fan comments to be added]
==Links & Further Reading==
*Tumblr users are tagging their porn with the ‘citrus scale’, The Daily Dot
*You can tell that someone is faking being Fandom Old when they complain that Kids These Days™ don’t know what “orange” and “grapefruit” mean. - Tumblr post by prokopetz, in which he talks about the citrus scale and the different meanings of certain labels depending on the community.
*Citrus Scale on Know Your Meme
*citrus scale on UrbanDictionary
== References ==
Category:Anime & Manga Fandom
Category:Social Media Feature-Terminology Thursday