This HaBO comes from Sabrina, who is searching for a time travel romance:
I’d love help finding this time travel romance book! I can’t remember the name or the author, but loved it.
It’s a time travel romance. The heroine is from the future and travels back to (I think Regency) England. The hero is a very grumpy lord.
Lemon juice is used as a form of birth control.
A witch sends the heroine back to her time.
This book was probably released in the late 80s early 90s.
Lemon juice. Yikes.
I’m pretty sure this is *not* the book based on the HABO details, but Robin Schone’s Awaken, My Love is a time travel romance with a grumpy lord and lemons as contraceptives. (It’s also available in Kindle Unlimited if anyone is interested in checking out the crazysauce.)
Agree. Awaken my love. Robin schone.
I’ve got a vague feeling Reay Tannahill mentioned lemons in her history of sex, either in the context of using a squeezed lemon as a cervical cap or because citric acid changes the pH of the vagina. Either way, it reminds me of McArthur Wheeler, the guy who robbed a bank after smearing lemon juice on his face because he thought it would fool the security cameras.
All I can think of is lemon juice that’s got to hurt!
A half lemon doesn’t sound great either!
It’s not the book in question, but I recall a lemon being used as birth control in Elizabeth Hoyt’s To Beguile a Beast.
A trip down memory lane: in my teen years, a school mate assured me with complete seriousness that you could not get pregnant if you douched with Sprite immediately after sex. It still boggles my mind that in the early-1970s (basically contemporaneous with Roe v. Wade) such appalling ignorance was still rampant. Thank God for my mother who explained to me clearly and concisely how pregnancy occurred and how to prevent it—and, no, soft drinks were not involved.
Whoa, I got curious about the lemon juice and… apparently it really is a natural spermicide according to science? This article (https://www.livestrong.com/article/545679-lemon-juice-mens-fertility/) says that lemon juice boosts male fertility when drunk, but that:
Despite the usefulness of lemon juice nutrients in boosting sperm quality and fertility, it is also true that lemon juice kills sperm. According to a study published in 2016 by Agriculture and Natural Resources, when lemon juice was mixed with semen, sperm were immediately paralyzed and became permanently deformed. These findings suggest that lemon juice could be used as a component of a natural form of birth control in the future.
The study they mention appears to be this: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/303916477_Spermicidal_effects_of_lemon_juice_and_juices_from_other_natural_products
and I also found an earlier article (https://www.fertstert.org/article/S0015-0282(06)00082-3/fulltext), which cautions
The efficacy of this concentration of lemon juice as a vaginal contraceptive would require adequate mixing of the ejaculated semen and lemon juice during intercourse. Ejaculate volume in normal men rarely exceeds 5 mL, so it would be necessary to deliver at least 1.5 mL of lemon juice into the vagina to obtain the desired concentration. A formal clinical trial of the acceptability, safety, and efficacy of lemon juice as a cheap and widely available vaginal contraceptive is urgently needed before its use can be promoted.
This was not what I was expecting.
I was told you had to douche with Coca Cola. You could also then jump up and down to shake it all out. As the doctor’s kid you had read certain textbooks, I was able to explain to my friends that condoms were more reliable.
It’s not the book listed in the HABO (and I can’t remember the title anyway), but I know I’ve read a regency where the heroine, upon the advice of a friend who is either a courtesan, or a widow, uses a sponge soaked in lemon juice, as an attempt at birth control.
Pretty sure I read this but it was a book I found in the desk drawer while covering at the reception desk so I have no idea the title or author. But I remember the time travel and the lemons. And the butler asking for the left-over lemon juice because he and the maid had been using vinegar-soaked sponges and the lemon juice smelled nicer. This was not the most crazy-sauce book in that desk drawer.
of course, in Voyager by Diana Gabaldon, Claire recommends sponge soaked in vinegar to be inserted before sex.
Does one squirt the lemon juice before or after?
@MelMc: That occurred in the Schone book.
That must have been some drawer! LOL
I don’t know what the failure rate was, but considering the birth control options available at the time, lemons or vinegar at least was something. I do remember that scene in the Elizabeth Hoyt book.
I had to check: does it sting when vinegar is applied to mucous membranes? Surprisingly enough, no: at least not a little dab for a short while. I didn’t have lemon juice to test. So, a lemon- or vinegar-soaked barrier might actually be a workable way of reducing the frequency of pregnancies (though not to zero), according to that study quoted above. Who knew.
Better by far lemons or lemon juice than what the ancient Egyptians used: crocodile dung.