History Main / LoverAndBeloved

Say Bob and Charles are not family, but are close to one another. ''Really'' close. Bob is younger than Charles, and Charles is quite happy to take Bob under his wing. He guides Bob to his place, whether in the world or simply in one social circle. However, Bob and Charles' affection for each other is [[HoYay a bit more]] [[LoveInterest than fatherly]].

* ''La ville dont le prince est un enfant'' (''The Fire that Burns''), a 1997 TV film adapted from Henry de Montherlant's play of the same name, about the love between an older and a younger boy at a Jesuit [[OneGenderSchool school]], and a [[PedophilePriest priest's]] [[GreenEyedMonster jealousy]] over the younger boy.

* ''Return to Innocence'' (2001), of which the screenplay was adapted by Gary M. Frazier from his novel of the same name. 13-year-old Tommy has been mistreated by his mother for years; among other things, she prostituted him and made pornographic videos of him to put on the internet. When this is discovered Tommy is sent to [[BoardingSchool a group home]] [[OneGenderSchool for mistreated boys]]. The head of staff there is Glen Erskine, a married father, and a respected expert on male adolescent sexuality. Tommy has a relationship, including sex, with his counselor, another middle-aged married man with kids. The relationship is discovered and shortly thereafter [[spoiler:the man dies in a car accident.]] Tommy, believing Erskine is responsible, lashes out at Erskine, falsely accusing him, and Erskine ends up on trial for sex with a minor.

* ''En forelskelse'' (Awakening) (2008), a Danish short film. A 16-year-old boy meets his new girlfriend's parents and ends up having a brief, awkward secret [[TriangRelations affair]] with the dad. Subverted in that the boy is the one who makes the first move.

* In Creator/StephenFry's ''The Liar'', the main character writes a play with a Victorian setting, in which a man rescues a 14-year-old boy from prostitution but then, to his horror, kind of accidentally sleeps with him. Said main character is in love with a slightly younger boy at his [[OneGenderSchool boys']] [[BoardingSchool school]] and also spends a while [[spoiler:...or does he?]] as a prostitute working Piccadilly Circus, picked up by older men. He's in his later teens at this point; some of the other boy prostitutes are as young as 11.

* ''Return to Innocence'', which the author later adapted into a movie. 13-year-old Tommy has been mistreated by his mother for years; among other things, she prostituted him and made pornographic videos of him to put on the internet. When this is discovered Tommy is sent to [[BoardingSchool a group home]] [[OneGenderSchool for mistreated boys]]. The head of staff there is Glen Erskine, a married father, and a respected expert on male adolescent sexuality. Tommy has a relationship, including sex, with his counselor, another middle-aged married man with kids. The relationship is discovered and shortly thereafter [[spoiler:the man dies in a car accident.]] Tommy, believing Erskine is responsible, lashes out at Erskine, falsely accusing him, and Erskine ends up on trial for sex with a minor.

* ''Du er ikke alene'' (''You Are Not Alone'') (1978): another tale about an older and a younger [[OneGenderSchool boy]] at BoardingSchool. The older boy, fifteen, is something of a teacher and protector for the younger, twelve, who looks up to him. As is common with this trope, the older boy is the more sexually interested: he catches sight of a pretty face and goes for it. The younger boy, who [[ADateWithRosiePalms masturbates]] already but whose sexuality may not yet be very strong or defined, is happy to go along with things out of affection and admiration for his older friend.

* The 2007 British TV film ''Clapham Junction'' subverts this trope. A 32-year-old man, suspected by locals of being on the sex offenders' register, lives in the neighbouring tower block to a 14-year-old boy. The boy sees the man through the window and is very attracted to him, in fact [[ADateWithRosiePalms masturbates]] while watching him. The boy eventually goes to the man's flat and seduces him. The man is also very attracted to the boy but he's afraid of the consequences of having sex with him and takes a good bit of persuading. They have anal sex, and the boy 'tops'. When the boy's mother and father find him there, and his mother suspects what's happened and becomes furious, the boy staunchly denies it.

* ''Series/LunaNera'': In a {{gender flip}}ped version, the elderly chief witch Tebe is in a relationship with the middle-aged Janara, whom she taught magic.

* ''Series/InterviewWithTheVampire2022'': In vampire terms, Lestat de Lioncourt is Louis de Pointe du Lac's maker (i.e. the vampire who turned him), and his express purpose for doing this is so that [[ILoveYouVampireSon Louis becomes his eternal lover]]. The second episode focuses on Louis' experience as a fledgling vampire with Lestat (who is much older than him) as his teacher in vampirism, while also being involved in what Lestat calls a "vampire romance."

* ''Series/InterviewWithTheVampire2022'': In vampire terms, Lestat de Lioncourt is Louis de Pointe du Lac's maker (i.e. the vampire who turned him), and his express purpose for doing this is so that [[ILoveYouVampireSon Louis becomes his eternal lover]]. The second episode focuses on Louis's experience as a fledgling vampire with Lestat (who is much older than him) as his teacher in vampirism, while also being involved in what Lestat calls a "vampire romance."

Say Bob and Charles are not family but are close to one another. ''Really'' close. Bob is younger than Charles, and Charles is quite happy to take Bob under his wing. He guides Bob to his place, whether in the world or simply in one social circle. However, Bob and Charles' affection for each other is [[HoYay a bit more]] [[LoveInterest than fatherly]].

This trope originates in ancient Greece, with their [[ValuesDissonance custom of pederasty]]. The Greek words for this trope are ''erastês'' (ἐραστής, "lover") and ''erômenos'' (ἐρώμενος "beloved"). A very similar system developed independently in Japan, where the partners are the ''nenja'' ("man who loves") and his ''wakashū'' ("young person").[[note]]''wakashu'' technically covers any boy between early childhood and adulthood, and was also used outside of relationship contexts, but by the end of the Edo period it pretty much meant "{{uke}}".[[/note]] High-ranking Chinese courtiers and Buddhist monks also took younger male lovers fairly often, but in a less formal system than in Greece and Japan. Greek accounts of the Persians, Spanish accounts of the Maya, and Roman accounts of the Celts also all describe similar pederastic institutions, though in the latter two cases, this might have been to demonize the conquered cultures.

Modern {{Yaoi}} has a similar (though less stratified) version of this trope: {{Seme}} and {{Uke}}.

* ''Series/LunaNera'': The elderly chief witch Tebe is in a relationship with the middle-aged Janara, whom she taught magic.

Say Bob and Charles are not family, but are close to one another. ''Really'' close. Bob is younger than Charles, and Charles is quite happy to take Bob under his wing. He guides Bob to his place, whether in the world or simply in one social circle. However, Bob and Charles' affection for each other is [[HoYay a bit more]] [[LoveInterest than fatherly]].

This dynamic applies to a gay male couple (or simply an {{ambiguous|lyGay}} one) in which one partner is much older and acts as a {{mentor|Archetype}} to another. In this dynamic, Charles is most often powerful and successful, and Bob is most often phyically attractive in [[PrettyBoy one way]] or [[MrFanservice another]].

This trope originates in ancient Greece, with their [[ValuesDissonance custom of pederasty]]. The Greek words for this trope are ''erastês'' (ἐραστής, "lover") and ''erômenos'' (ἐρώμενος "beloved"). A very similar system developed independently in Japan, where the partners are the ''nenja'' ("man who loves") and his ''wakashū'' ("young person").[[note]]''wakashu'' technically covers any boy between early childhood and adulthood, and was also used outside of relationship contexts, but by the end of the Edo period it pretty much meant "{{uke}}".[[/note]] High-ranking Chinese courtiers and Buddhist monks also took younger male lovers fairly often, but in a less formal system than in Greece and Japan. Greek accounts of the Persians, Spanish accounts of the Maya, and Roman accounts of the Celts also all describe similar pederastic institutions, though in the latter two case this might have been to demonize the conquered cultures.

** Note that all the in canon references to this are nasty rumors being spread about the main characters, all of which are unfounded. Specifically Kouryuu and Koumyou's relationship is explicitly NOT like that despite the talkers. One of the things that makes the scene where a newly-crowned Sanzo leaves the temple and is nearly raped by bandits so poignant is his realization of how much his foster father had sheltered him from such things. Sanzo and Goku, were probably intended to be a lot closer to this trope so the fangirls could squee, while not being quite as squicky as the pre-pubescent Kouryuu and middle-aged Koumyou. [[spoiler:[[DepravedBisexual Ukoku]] and Kami, the unfortunate slave boy he takes in as an experiment to see what Koumyou sees in Kouryuu, probably play this trope a lot [[IncrediblyLamePun straighter]], if about fifty times more disturbingly.]]

* In ''FanFic/SithAcademy'', a parody of ''Franchise/StarWars'' with Darth Maul as the VillainProtagonist, that this is pretty much standard for Jedi Masters and their Padawans, with Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi's relationship being especially saccharine at times. A number of stories mention former male Padawans of Mace Windu, and even Yoda gets into the act with his students. It's hinted that {{Teacher Student Romance}}s are equally common for Jedi partnerships where both are female, or when one is male and the other female, but no couples of these sorts appear in the stories. Curiously, even though Sidious is homosexual and Maul is bisexual, it's explicitly mentioned that relationships are forbidden between a Sith Master and apprentice because they would either be too competitive with each other, or else tend to mellow out and lose their edge. This doesn't stop either of them from having WarShip trysts with the Jedi, however.

** ''Un enfant dans la foule'' (''A Child in the Crowd''): A thirteen-year-old boy, also fatherless, poor and neglected by his family, is taken up by various men and also by one woman, who a friend of one of the men. They all have sex with him. One man and the woman are only after sex and treat the boy quite cavalierly, though not cruelly. Another man, a teacher, separated from his wife and kids, temporarily becomes a good mentor to the boy, though the man eventually decides that he can't provide what the boy needs because he doesn't want to take responsibility for him.

* ''Die Konsequenz'' (''The Consequence'') (1977): Martin, an actor of about 30, is sent to prison for sex with his 15-year-old boyfriend -- who now has a girlfriend. Martin meets Thomas, the 16-year-old gay son of the prison warder, and the two fall in love and, at Thomas' instigation, have sex. When Martin gets out of prison he finds that Thomas' parents and boss reject Thomas because of his homosexuality, so he and Thomas leave town together, get an apartment and plan for Thomas to go back to school. However, Thomas is taken away by social services and sent to a very unpleasant home for delinquent boys. Martin breaks him out, but Thomas ends up with an older man who says he'll help him but instead blackmails him into becoming his boyfriend. Then the older man throws Thomas out and Thomas becomes a [[TheOldestProfession prostitute]] and finally, having nowhere else to go, returns to the boys' home. At 21 he is released and he and Martin, who in the meantime has had a casual boyfriend nearer his own age, reunite, but [[spoiler:Thomas seems irretrievably damaged. He attempts suicide and then runs away from hospital, and there the film ends.]]

* Arguably, ''Une histoire sans importance'' (''A Story of No Importance'') (1980), which is about the homoerotic friendship between two teenaged boys. Though there's only about a year's difference in their ages, they conform to most of the classic elements of this trope. Philippe, the elder, is gay and falls deeply in love with Claude, the younger. Claude, on the other hand, is basically straight, and sees flirting with Philippe as a game. During an argument, Claude says, "I was a kid back then. You taught me things." Philippe is frustrated that Claude is not a deep thinker and they can't talk about ideas together. When they eventually have sex, it consists of Philippe masturbating Claude. [[spoiler:Eventually, Claude turns to girls, leaving Philippe broken-hearted.]] These are all things you can find in many lover/beloved tales with a wide age gap between the pair. At one point, Claude is eyed up on the street by a grown man. It's a brief moment but full of implication, given the ending of the film, in which [[spoiler:Claude has sex with Philippe [[TheOldestProfession for money]].]]

* Played with in Patrice Chereau's ''L'Homme blessé'' (''The Wounded Man'') (1983). Henri, an innocent lad in his late teens, is waiting to see his sister off at the railway station when he realises that he is being watched by another man. He follows the man to the men's toilets, where he finds him being assaulted by another man. The other man suddenly kisses Henri, whereupon Henri becomes obsessed with him. He returns to the station to find this strange older man and insists on following him about. The man, who is gay, is a jaded crook and pimp, but Henri falls in love with him, and becomes a [[TheOldestProfession hustler]] in order to please him.

* ''Il sapore del grano'' (''The Flavour of Corn'' / ''The Taste of Wheat'') (1986). Lorenzo, a university student doing a year's teaching in a rural area, develops a romantic friendship with twelve-year-old Duilio, one of the boys in his class. The lover/beloved dynamic is played with. Lorenzo brings Duilio an encyclopedia as a present; Duilio teaches Lorenzo to drive a tractor and identify trees and offers him the simple affection which Lorenzo, who lacks a family and whose (rather vigorous) sexual relationships with women are emotionally unsatisfying, needs. When Lorenzo's girlfriend, seeing a postcard from Duilio, asks if he's one of Lorenzo's pupils, Lorenzo says, "No, he's the one who taught me everything I know." Lorenzo is made uneasy by his sexual attraction to Duilio, particularly when Duilio's family, with whom he has also become friends, grow uneasy too -- the stepmother because she thinks, mistakenly, that Lorenzo has done something sexual with Duilio, the father because he sees that Duilio loves Lorenzo more than Duilio loves him, the father. Eventually, though the family decide they like Lorenzo again, [[spoiler:Lorenzo leaves the village, even though Duilio longs for him to stay.]]

* ''Voor een verloren soldaat'' (''For a Lost Soldier''), a 1992 film set during the Second World War, portrays the brief love affair between a twelve-year-old Dutch boy and a young Canadian soldier, with elements of this trope invoked. The source book, an autobiographical novel by choreographer Rudi van Dantzig, portrays the soldier pretty much forcing himself on the boy, who is upset by this but is also drawn to the soldier and keeps coming back to him. The film turns this into a gentle, consensual romance.

* ''Smukke Dreng'' (''Pretty Boy''), a 1993 Danish film. A 13-year-old boy runs away from home and gets into robbery and [[TheOldestProfession hustling]]. He has a relationship with an astronomy professor, whom he's drawn to because he's also interested in astronomy, but the man also has an adult girlfriend, and throws the boy out when she comes home from vacation. The boy is angry and wants revenge.

* ''Film/GodsAndMonsters'' (1998), a fictionalised depiction of the last days of Creator/JamesWhale. Whale is famous both for directing ''Film/Frankenstein1931'' and ''Film/BrideOfFrankenstein'' and for being openly gay in 1950s Hollywood. The film portrays him becoming attracted to his new gardener, a handsome young ex-Marine. The gardener is straight but Whale assures him that he has no sexual intentions. This turns out not to be the case, and the gardener freaks out.

* ''Eban and Charley'' (2000). 29-year-old Eban meets Charley, just turned 15, and they fall in love. Somewhat subverted in that Charley initiates the sex. The filmmaker said this was based on a true story he knew of: a teenaged boy, mature for his age, had an older boyfriend; the man's friends disapproved of the relationship because of the age gap and the man broke up with the boy, who was devastated. [[spoiler:In the film the lovers get a happy ending: they run away together.]]
* ''L.I.E.'' (2001) Big John, a 55-year-old ex-Marine, respected local figure and pederast, lives with a 19-year-old boy and also buys the services of teenaged male [[TheOldestProfession prostitutes]]. He tries to use his regular, callous seduction moves on 15-year-old Howie, but instead finds himself falling in love with Howie and sublimates his sexual desires to be the father stand-in Howie desperately needs. Howie becomes aware of his power over John and flirts with him, eventually [[spoiler:making an advance which John, very unusually for him, turns down.]]
* ''Return to Innocence'' (2001), of which the screenplay was adapted by Gary M. Frazier from his novel of the same name. 13-year-old Tommy has been mistreated by his mother for years; among other things, she prostituted him, and made pornographic videos of him to put on the internet. When this is discovered Tommy is sent to [[BoardingSchool a group home]] [[OneGenderSchool for mistreated boys]]. The head of staff there is Glen Erskine, a married father, and a respected expert on male adolescent sexuality. Tommy has a relationship, including sex, with his counselor, another middle-aged married man with kids. The relationship is discovered and shortly thereafter [[spoiler:the man dies in a car accident.]] Tommy, believing Erskine is responsible, lashes out at Erskine, falsely accusing him, and Erskine ends up on trial for sex with a minor.

* Played with in ''Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros'' (''The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros'') (2005). Maxi is an effeminate gay 12-year-old boy from a family of petty criminals in the slums of Manila. He falls in love with a young rookie policeman, Victor, when Victor rescues him from an assault. Maxi seeks out Victor's company and the two become friends, Victor advising Maxi to go to school, get a good job and stay away from crime. The other policemen tease Victor about being Maxi's boyfriend, but Victor turns down Maxi's romantic overtures, leaving Maxi heartbroken. At one point, however, Victor calls Maxi pretty and strokes his hair, which is probably just chaste affection but carries a possibly hint of HoYay. At the end of the film [[spoiler:Victor waits to speak to Maxi but Maxi walks by him -- just possibly an UnrequitedLoveSwitcheroo.]] Filipino audiences may read the film quite differently to Western ones, however.

* In ''Avant que j'oublie'' (''Before I Forget''), a 2007 film about an ageing gay man, lover/beloved relationships between older and younger men are the only kind portrayed. Often, the older man feels more attraction and affection for the younger one than vice versa, and the younger man is partly in it to have money left to him.

* The 2007 British TV film ''Clapham Junction'' subverts this trope. A 32-year-old man, suspected by locals of being on the sex offenders' register, lives in the neighbouring tower block to a 14-year-old boy. The boy sees the man through the window and is very attracted to him, in fact [[ADateWithRosiePalms masturbates]] while watching him. The boy eventually goes to the man's flat and seduces him. The man is also very attracted to the boy but he's afraid of the consequences of having sex with him, and takes a good bit of persuading. They have anal sex, and the boy 'tops'. When the boy's mother and father find him there, and his mother suspects what's happened and becomes furious, the boy staunchly denies it.
* ''James'' (2008). A boy of 15 or 16, [[OlderThanTheyLook looking younger than his age]], gay, friendless and bullied, goes to a local public toilet where men meet for sex. A middle-aged man with a suit and a nice car approaches him in the toilet, promising "We won't do anything you don't want to do", but he leaves. On another day, [[spoiler:he comes back, sees the man outside the toilet, gets in his car and says, "Do you know somewhere we could go?" The car starts, the film ends.]]

* The German TV film ''Guter Junge'' is about a man who finds out that his 17-year-old son likes younger boys and doesn't know what on earth to do about it. Sven, the son, has a relationship with a fatherless, neglected boy of 12 or 13, Patrick, whom he tutors after school, and who plainly looks up to him. However, the trope is subverted in that with this boy and with an 11-year-old he's seen hanging out with at a party, Sven is happy to follow the boy's lead. Patrick wants to be an actor, so the two go to the movies together. The other boy wants to play the family CD collection for Sven, so that's what they do. Far from getting a kick out of being the 'older man', Sven is fixated on boyhood: he keeps his old toys around, shaves all his body hair and feels glum about turning 18.

* ''Film/CallMeByYourName'' (2017) along with the novel it's based on is a modern example, being about the relationship of the 17 years old Elio and the 24 years old American academic Oliver. Slightly subverted in that Elio is the one to more actively pursue the relationship, but in the end Oliver, with a single intimate touch, is the one to initiate it.

* Ancient Greece and Rome produced much pederastic poetry. Particularly well-known authors in this vein were Anacreon, Theognis of Megara, Theocritus, Meleager of Gadara, and Straton/Strato of Sardis (ancient Greece), and Horace, Martial and Creator/{{Catullus}} (ancient Rome). Creator/{{Virgil}}'s ''Second Eclogue'' also features this theme, as does a fragment of poetry from Solon, the preeminent statesman and lawmaker of archaic Athens. Some of the Greek pederastic poems compare the beauty of women unfavourably with that of boys, and complain about women generally: the nagging, the makeup.

* Since during early medieval Europe it was usually only men of the Church who were literate, it was they who wrote the [[PedophilePriest pederastic literature]] of the time period, along with writing everything else. Marbod, Bishop of Rennes and before that master of the Cathedral school at Rennes, wrote a poem about a beautiful boy, referencing an ode of Horace's, and warning the boy addressed not to scorn his suitors, because his beauty would soon be gone as he grew up. Hildebert of Lavardin, successively Bishop of Mans and Archbishop of Tours, wrote a poem about Jove and Ganymede; Hilary of England, a student of Abelard's, wrote poems to pretty boys, also referencing Jove and Ganymede. Later the social climate turned against sodomy and poems were written fulminating against homosexual practices. Some wag appended to one such attack a verse which compared Ganymede favourably to Venus and said, doubtless correctly, that many people who publicly condemned sex with boys were having it themselves on the sly.
* ''Don Leon'', a long poem of anonymous authorship, published in 1866 but probably written in the 1830s. It is written in the first-person voice of Lord Byron, and is a passionate defence of homosexuality, directed against the law forbidding sodomy. It describes Byron's love for various boys, refutes the notion that Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed because their inhabitants practised sodomy, and makes reference to the Greek pederastic tradition, including to Creator/{{Plato}} and Socrates and to Epaminondas, who was a great Theban general and statesman and had a younger boyfriend, Cephidorus. Love between two boys or between a man and a boy is the only form of homosexuality mentioned in the poem; love between two men is not considered.

* Frederick Rolfe's ''Stories Toto Told Me'', in which the Roman Catholic Don Frederico and his teenaged acolytes walk in the Italian countryside and the head acolyte, sixteen-year-old Toto, tells stories about the saints, who in the stories behave more like pagan gods. These ''Toto'' stories contain pederastic elements; Corvo represents this as the 'Greek love' which all educated men of his time knew about from their reading of the Classics. In a later novel, ''The Desire and Pursuit of the Whole'', Rolfe presents a slightly disguised version of the trope. Nicholas Crabbe, a very Corvo-like figure from a highly autobiographical earlier novel, ''Nicholas Crabbe'', rescues a 16-year-old girl from the Messina earthquake and employs her as his assistant and gondolier. To avoid scandal, he has her [[WholesomeCrossdresser wear boys' clothes]]. Crabbe ends up getting a book contract which assures him a lot of money and declaring his love to the girl. Earlier, as a young man, Rolfe had written sentimental poetry about boys swimming naked, boy martyrs and so on.

* Forrest Reid was an Irish novelist, literary critic and translator with connections to the significant literary figures of his day, including the Bloomsbury Group. He wrote one of the best critical studies of W. B. Yeats and the definitive work on the English woodcut artists of the 1860s. He also wrote about the fiction of his friend Walter de la Mare, produced two volumes of autobiography and translated poems from the Greek Anthology. His special subject was boyhood and his novels carry an undercurrent of his interest in teenage boys. His 'Tom' trilogy, reprinted by the Gay Men's Press, follows a boy's growing up. ''Young Tom, or Very Mixed Company'' won the 1944 James Tait Black Memorial Prize. In ''The Garden God'', a 1905 novel, two sixteen-year-old boys fall in love. The novel contains lush descriptions of aristocratic adolescent male beauty and copious references to ancient Greece. It is implied that one of the boys has previously had sex with other boys at their [[OneGenderSchool single-sex]] BoardingSchool, but he 'redeems' himself by [[spoiler:dying to save his innocent friend]], whereupon the friend, who has had Greek-inspired pagan tendencies, turns back to Christianity. Reid dedicated the novel to his idol Henry James, who never spoke to him again. Nowadays the book seems much less shocking; Michael Matthew Kaylor, in his introduction to the reedition, writes, "If there can be such a thing as a puritanical pederast, Forrest Reid was that person." Reid has been called "the first Ulster novelist of European stature".
* E. F. Benson's 1916 novel ''David Blaize'', a [[OneGenderSchool boys']] BoardingSchool story. The title character takes up with Frank Maddox, three years older, who becomes his best friend, his (chaste) lover, his mentor and protector. When David is new at school, according to custom he is Frank's servant. Later on, Frank has to beat David to teach him a lesson -- "this will hurt me more than it hurts you" kind of thing. David's open innocence 'redeems' Frank from the 'sin' of mutual masturbation with other boys.
* Several of Creator/WHAuden's most famous love poems, including 'Lullaby' and 'A Bride in the Thirties' were written about teenage Michael Yates, when Auden was in his late twenties.

* Mary Renault's books, because she wrote a lot about ancient Greece, where this trope was the standard for homosexual relationships. In ''The Last of the Wine'', Alexias' lover Lysis is about 8 years older than him, which wouldn't be much except that they fall for each other when Alexias is 15 and start a relationship when Alexias is 16. In ''The Mask of Apollo'', Nikeratos is about a dozen years older than his life partner Thettalos, and the relationship starts when Thettalos is 18; Plato (yes that Plato) has an ongoing friendship with a man, Dion, whose lover he was when Dion was 20 and Plato was 40. In ''The Persian Boy'', 26-year-old Alexander the Great is seduced by 16-year-old Bagoas, which is the start of a 7-year relationship, lasting till Alexander's death. In ''The Praise Singer'', 15-year-old Harmodios embarks on a love affair with Aristogeiton, a man in his late 20s. ''The King Must Die'', ''The Bull from the Sea'', ''Fire From Heaven'' and ''Funeral Games'' don't feature this trope so prominently, but they all take place against the backdrop of societies in which young men, and sometimes older men, have relationships with teenaged boys and, if both are upper-class, are expected to mentor the boys. ''The Charioteer'', Renault's last contemporary novel, set during World War II, has its twenty-three-year-old protagonist Laurie involved in two relationships: he's the Lover to 19-year-old Andrew, the Beloved to 26-year-old Ralph. Incidentally, the teenaged Alexander and Hephaistion subvert this trope in ''Fire From Heaven'' by being a.) lovers and b.) the same age; this surprises Alexander's father Philip. However, these days historians think that relationships between adolescent coevals, albeit with a lover/beloved dynamic still obtaining, were probably common in ancient Macedon; each area had its own tradition of homosexuality. Bagoas, who comes from a different culture, sees Alexander as Hephaistion's "boy" and takes pride in giving Alexander the chance to play the "man's" role. Obviously, the Alexander/Bagoas relationship, the Harmodios/Aristogeiton relationship and Plato's relationships with younger guys are fictional depictions of actual relationships recorded by history.
* ''Literature/{{Lolita}}'' is, of course, chiefly about a man sexually attracted to girls 9-14 years old and his passion for his 12-year-old stepdaughter, whose life he ruins. The homosexual version crops up with a minor character, a French expatriate named Gaston Grodin, who becomes friends with Humbert Humbert, the protagonist. Grodin is a professor of French at the local college. He and Humbert play TabletopGame/{{chess}} together (Grodin is a terrible chess player) and Grodin kindly gives Humbert various presents, surpluses from gifts given to him by the neighbourhood ladies -- he's popular in the neighbourhood. He also has a liking for young boys, which nobody seems to have noticed except Humbert. He keeps, and shows to Humbert, an album of snapshots of the local lads; in his basement he has pistols and tiger-skins and other things likely to appeal to the boys, whom he invites round. Once, he and Humbert go to the theatre together, Humbert taking Lolita and Gaston taking a local boy, whose father is away that night. Humbert says that Grodin eventually got involved in a ''sale histoire'' (a nasty business), "in Naples of all places", and got into trouble.
* Sandro Penna's celebrated poems, which are largely about boys, since "everything else is uninteresting". In Penna's only collection of prose there is a short story in which a man is attracted to a working-class boy of 12 or 13 whom the man sees in a barbershop.
* In Iris Murdoch's ''The Bell'', 40-year-old Michael falls in unrequited love with 18-year-old Toby and thinks that "...it might be possible to watch over him and help him...in a way that Toby would never know, in humble services obscurely performed at future times. ... He was conscious of such a fund of love and goodwill for the young creature beside him." While a 26-year-old [[OneGenderSchool teacher]], Michael had a brief, chaste [[TeacherStudentRomance love affair]] with a 15-year-old [[BoardingSchool pupil]] of his, Nick. This was the first time Michael had been attracted to someone so much younger than himself. He thought that "Nick, who was already his lover, would become his son"; indeed, Nick was "already playing both parts". But a revivalist preacher came to the school and after listening to his sermon Nick felt that his relationship with Michael was a sin, so he reported it, and Michael was thrown out of his job and his hopes of the [[PedophilePriest priesthood]] ended. In Murdoch's ''A Fairly Honourable Defeat'', two of the main characters, both grown men, one older than the other, are a lover/beloved couple.In ''The Nice and the Good'', a man becomes attracted to his 15-year-old nephew, who is oblivious, instead pining for a girl his own age. It later emerges that the man was thrown out of a Buddhist community somewhere in the East for having sex with an adolescent boy.

* Lover / beloved affairs are also the done thing in ''Lord Dismiss Us'', another [[OneGenderSchool boys']] BoardingSchool story, from England this time. The trope is subverted in that sixteen-year-old Allen is more mature than eighteen-year-old Carleton, his boyfriend, the story's protagonist. Also, Allen comments, "With us it's different to everyone else. It's usually the older one who loves more. But I love you more." Twenty-four-year-old Ashley went to the school as a boy and there had a love affair with a younger boy, mirroring much of what is going on between Carleton and Allen, but has had no contact his former boyfriend since. He has now returned to the school as a literature teacher. Carleton wants to be a writer, and Ashley helps him with a story he is writing. Carleton has no idea about Ashley's affections and is initially shocked and repulsed when he finds out, but softens his opinion later. Some other men among the teachers at the school are also attracted to the boys and have little coteries. Amusingly, the [[PedophilePriest chaplain]] has a taste for rather unwashed lads, whom he has to tea in his study. He keeps art of naked boys around, but never actually lays a finger on the real boys; their proximity is enough. He tells Allen, who wants to be a clergyman, that homosexual sex is a sin, but is fine with homosexual love. Carleton and Allen have independently decided to keep their relationship chaste. Carleton also remembers that when he was a small boy at his preparatory school, a teacher there used to sit on his bed and talk to him at night, sit Carleton on his lap, and touch Carleton's bottom.
* Angus Stewart's ''Sandel'' is about the love between Tony, a 13-year-old choirboy, and David, a 19-year-old undergraduate, who is reading English but is also an accomplished musician. David becomes a teacher at Tony's [[OneGenderSchool choir]] BoardingSchool. When 17 and at school himself, David fell in love from afar with a younger boy, but never acted on his feelings. Tony is quickly growing up and the breaking of his voice, the growth of his pubic hair, the development of his adolescent coarseness of mind and manner will put an end to the boyishness that attracts David to him.
* At the beginning of Paul Scott's Raj Quartet, set near the end of the British Raj in India, Ronald Merrick, a policeman in his early thirties with repressed homosexual and sadomasochistic tendencies, becomes strongly attracted to a young man of 22. This young man is good-looking; he is stuck-up; he is Indian, whereas Merrick is white, and feels superior for it; he was raised in Britain, in a much more upper-class milieu than Merrick's, so Merrick feels inferior...it's a perfect storm. Merrick ends up ruining the young man's life. Someone else comments that Merrick "chose" Kumar because he was "unable to love. Only he was able to punish." In a later book an older Merrick reappears, and it emerges that he has been sleeping with young Indian men. In between we meet Count Bronowski, an urbane elderly Russian who falls in unrequited love with young men; he recounts how he once loved an 18-year-old boy who loved a girl, and he is currently just as hopelessly in love with his young social secretary, Ahmed Kasim. There's also a rare gender-swapped version of the trope in which an ageing lesbian falls in unrequited love with younger women. The trope is averted with Pinky, a 20-year-old gay man: he is frequently offered boy prostitutes on the street but "it wasn't a boy he wanted, but someone of his own age."

* Gary Shelhardt's ''Kite Music''. A young American postgraduate student of teaching goes to Thailand on a teacher-exchange programme. There, he agrees to allow two 12-13 year old boys to live with him, since this will permit them to attend school. The teacher and one of the boys fall in love with each other and have an [[TeacherStudentRomance affair]]. The boy initiates the sex, climbing into bed with his teacher one night. Their relationship survives intimidation from American officials and blackmail threats. Eventually the boy becomes a monk.

* ''Reasons of the Heart'', by Bron Nicholls. In Australia in the late 1960s, 25-year-old Fred and beautiful 11-year-old paperboy Jonathan meet and over the next year a relationship develops between them. Jonathan lives with Fred from age 12 to age 17, when he leaves to be an artist. Ten years later, Fred is not over Jonathan and lives alone, but then Jonathan, who is now widowed and has a son with Down's Syndrome, reappears in Fred's life.
* Joseph Geraci's novels. In ''Marrying Tom'', two boys aged 13 and 16 have a relationship. In ''The Deaf-Mute Boy'', Maurice Burke, a former Jesuit, is now an archaeology professor at Columbia University and has an adult boyfriend, who has AIDS. While working in Sousse, Tunisia, he becomes close to Nidhal, the 13-year-old deaf-mute boy of the title, and also becomes involved with the boy's family. In ''Loving Sander'', Will, an American art scholar in his early 30s who likes boys, takes up a fellowship in the Netherlands and there falls in love with the 10-year-old son of a couple he's friends with. Over the next almost two years, Will and Sander have a close relationship, and when Sander is 11 they start having sex. Sander's mother seems to have a fairly good idea what's going on, but she doesn't interfere. Sander is an eager participant and even offers Will sex with his, Sander's, friend Michael. Will has an adult friend who also likes boys and is defiant about his preference, conducting a relationship of his own with a boy, and taking photographs of him. At the end of the book, Will has to choose between returning to the US and staying in the Netherlands. He and Sander have declared their love to one another, but Sander is almost 12, nearing puberty and starting to want independence from Will; the relationship will soon be over.

* ''Return to Innocence'', which the author later adapted into a movie. 13-year-old Tommy has been mistreated by his mother for years; among other things, she prostituted him, and made pornographic videos of him to put on the internet. When this is discovered Tommy is sent to [[BoardingSchool a group home]] [[OneGenderSchool for mistreated boys]]. The head of staff there is Glen Erskine, a married father, and a respected expert on male adolescent sexuality. Tommy has a relationship, including sex, with his counselor, another middle-aged married man with kids. The relationship is discovered and shortly thereafter [[spoiler:the man dies in a car accident.]] Tommy, believing Erskine is responsible, lashes out at Erskine, falsely accusing him, and Erskine ends up on trial for sex with a minor.

* In ''At Swim, Two Boys'', the three main characters are a young man in his twenties with a liking for teenaged boys ("half-girl faces on man-sized bodies") and two sixteen-year-old boys who fall in love with each other. The man, [=MacMurrough=], buys the sexual services of the poorer and more experienced sixteen-year-old, Doyler. He then gets to know Doyler's innocent boyfriend, Jim, while Doyler is away. The realisation of Jim's innocence and deep love for Doyler shakes shallow, promiscuous [=MacMurrough=] to the bone, and he falls in love with Jim and refrains from making advances to him, though Jim flirts sometimes. Instead, [=MacMurrough=] teaches Jim to swim so that Jim can keep a pact with Doyler, and encourages his relationship with Doyler in other ways. He does this even though it hurts him to see Jim with somebody else, so much that he decides to leave the country, though [[spoiler:war eventually intervenes.]]
* Allan Hollinghurst's novels, especially ''The Swimming Pool Library'' and ''The Spell'', are full of attraction, sex and relationships between older and younger gay men.

* In Alexander Chee's ''Edinburgh'', a 12-year-old boy, Fee, joins the Pine State Boys' Choir as a first soprano. He falls in unrequited love with Peter, his best friend in the choir. Turns out that the choir director sexually mistreats the boys, going so far as to drug them in order to do so. He is eventually caught, but the emotional fallout for the boys is heavy, and Peter and another boy later kill themselves. When in his middle teens, Fee is hit on by an older man, and he thinks about "how I could kill him". He also has a summer job working as a research assistant to an older man, who is a mentor for him and never lays a finger on him. At the man's funeral, he sees grown men of varying ages, and realises that the man has had a series of adolescent boys work for him. Fee has a lot of gay sex during college but keeps on falling in love with straight blond boys who remind him of Peter. At thirty, he is in a stable, {{happ|ilyMarried}}y relationship with a somewhat younger man, whom he's married in a commitment ceremony. He then meets a blond 17-year-old boy, hitherto straight, who, in a subversion of the Lover/Beloved trope, falls in love with Fee and pursues him. Fee is attracted to the boy and they eventually meet for clandestine sex.

* ''The Moralist'', by Rod Downey. 50-year-old professional spin doctor Richard 'Red' Rover is a self-proclaimed 'boylover' and has had sex with several boys. He joins a creative writing mentoring programme and ends up mentoring 12-year-old Jonathan, with whom he falls in love. Jonathan points out, "You like to hang around me, because it makes you feel like a kid again." Over the next year and a half, Red becomes friends with Jonathan's parents, takes Jonathan on outings, buys him presents, photographs him and offers to pay for his orthodontia -- but does not have sex with him. Then Red's best friend's house is burnt down by a group of vigilantes, so Red defiantly talks about his private life on TV, and he and Jonathan end up interrogated by the police.

* Played with in ''Literature/{{Havemercy}}''. Roy is older and definitely a mentor for Hal, but is reluctant about entering a relationship with him for precisely that reason. He doesn't want to take advantage, and in fact it's Hal who ends up as the pursuer for much of the novel.

* ''Literature/DragonBones'' has the relationship between the rather old (he is mentioned to have grey hair) high king Jakoven and the thirty year old Garranon. It started when Garranon was fifteen. [[spoiler:It is later revealed that Garranon secretly detests Jakoven, who exploited Garranon's vulnerable position as a child whose parents had just been killed by Jakoven's soldiers. ]]

* The latter half of season three of ''Series/{{Hannibal}}'' [[TheyDo reveals this as its endgame for Will and the titular psychopath]]. While Will is an adult in his early thirties, he's about a decade younger than Hannibal, highly vulnerable and susceptible to manipulation, and [[MrFanservice quite easy on the eyes]]; Hannibal in return is older, highly educated, appreciative of the Classics in art, music, and philosophy, and [[ImAHumanitarian has rather epicurean tastes]]. What starts out as an amusing side project to see how far Will can pushed before he snaps becomes something else entirely as Lector becomes more and more obsessed with proving to Will that they are the same. Hannibal instructs Will on a wide variety of subjects and the two have a series long, protracted debate about the ethics of murder, and artistic perception and appreciation of suffering as divine. [[InLoveWithYourCarnage Ultimately, Will capitulates, working with Hannibal to violently murder another serial killer and afterwards admitting that he thought of it as beautiful]], [[TakingYouWithMe before embracing Hannibal and throwing them both off a cliff and into the sea]]. Season three's Italian setting and continual references to Greco-Roman art, philosophy, and aesthetics cement the connection.

** People also believe that 50-year-old Caesar and teenage Octavian were a thing, because they saw them leave a lonely room at the same time. Turns out Octavian was just helping his great-uncle with a seizure. It's made even more awkward in that [[MyBelovedSmother his mother]] congratulated him on his "catch."

* Technically, this fits for Ianto (early to mid 20s) and Jack [[OlderThanTheyLook (around 170 when they first meet)]] on ''Series/{{Torchwood}}''. It's implied that, even though he wasn't a complete ingenue, Ianto never had a boyfriend before Jack. And he does expand his skills and grow quite a lot as a person while working for Jack. Jack for his part seems to have hired Ianto mainly for his good looks and good coffee. Subverted a bit in that Ianto set out to seduce Jack first, and only after Jack found out [[LoveMakesYouEvil why]] and [[EasilyForgiven forgave him for it]] did they start having anything approaching a real relationship.

* Zeus and Ganymede, Apollo and Hyacinthus, Poseidon and Pelops and lots of others.

* In some interpretations, ''Theatre/TheMerchantOfVenice''. There's a lot of HoYay between Antonio and Bassanio and Antonio, who is somewhat older than Bassanio, guarantees a big loan so that Bassanio can marry, in the process putting himself at risk of death at the hands of Shylock, whom he despises for being a Jew. In some readings the relationship is seen this way: Bassanio has a good male buddy his own age, but his boyfriend is the older, richer man Antonio. The rather reckless, youthful Bassanio is sincerely fond of Antonio but is also well aware that he has Antonio wrapped round his little finger; he wheedles money out of him and then proceeds to go off with a girl. The self-sacrificing Antonio, who loves Bassanio more than Bassanio loves him, watches and even facilitates this, keeping a lid on his own private pain over his love for Bassanio. All this is classic Lover and Beloved. Other readings, however, see a fully mutual love affair between Antonio and Bassanio, with Bassanio marrying Portia largely for her money, though he does declare his love for her. Still other readings see no sexual or romantic relationship between the two, with Antionio's love for Bassanio wholly unrequited, and yet others interpret Antonio and Bassanio simply as HeterosexualLifePartners.

** In ''Theatre/EdwardII'', a character recites a list of famous male/male couples, justifying homosexual relationships by saying that "The mightiest kings have had their minions...And not kings only, but the wisest men." Most of these are lover/beloved couples: Hercules and Hylas, Tully and Octavius, Socrates and Alcibiades, Achilles and Patroclus -- Achilles and Patroclus are not said to be lovers in the Iliad, but were seen as erastes and eromenos by later Greeks, although in the Iliad Patroclus is the elder. Alexander and Hephaestion, who were coevals, are also mentioned in the list. The historical Edward and his boyfriend Gaveston were actually the same age, but lover/beloved was the predominant homosexual trope in Marlowe's day: people learned the trope from the Greek and Roman classics they read at school, as the list shows.

* GenderInvertedTrope in Christa Winsloe's ''Gestern und Heute'' (''Yesterday and Today''), about a young teenaged girl's experiences at a strict [[OneGenderSchool single-sex]] BoardingSchool. [[TeacherStudentRomance The girl falls for a young female teacher, who loves her back but sticks to a chaste mentoring role]]. Things come unstuck because of the harsh, unfeeling way the school is run. The play, also called ''Ritter Nérestan'' (''Knight Nérestan'') and ''Krankheit der Liebe'' (''Sickness of Love''), was very popular. It is based on Winsloe's novel ''Das Kind Manuela'' (''The Child Manuela''), itself based on Winsloe's own experiences at boarding school. It was later filmed as ''Mädchen in Uniform'' (''Girls in Uniform''), with a screenplay written by Winsloe.

* ''Latin! or Tobacco and Boys'', a rather 'rude' and humorous play which Stephen Fry wrote when he was twenty-two. The main character is Dominic Clarke, a Latin teacher at a [[OneGenderSchool boys']] preparatory BoardingSchool like the one Fry attended. Clarke hated going through puberty with its acne and pubic hair, and wishes that he were still a boy. Sometimes he even wears boys' clothing in secret. Clarke gives 'extra Latin' to thirteen-year-old Cartwright, a boy in one of his classes. In reality, of course, this is a cover for sexual liasions with the boy, which are the only way Clarke can feel that he himself is a boy again. Clarke plays favorites outrageously with Cartwright and is discovered to have cheated for Cartwright on Cartwright's Common Entrance exams to get into secondary school. He is sacked, and he and Cartwright convert to Islam and go to Morocco, where pederasty is more acceptable. The other boys in the class then decide they want to go to Morocco too. The title is a reference to Marlowe's "All they that love not tobacco and boys are fools."

* Briefly mentioned in ''Theatre/TheLionInWinter''. King Henry says to his mistress Alais, "In my time I've known contessas, milkmaids, courtesans and novices, whores, gypsies, jades and little boys, but nowhere in God's western world have I found anyone to love but you." UsefulNotes/RichardTheLionHeart and Philip II of France are depicted as having had an affair two years before the action, when Richard was 24 and Philip was 15. Philip tells Richard that he is no longer "the boy you taught to hunt... you running first, me scrambling after."

* Technically, this fits for Ianto (early to mid 20s) and Jack [[OlderThanTheyLook (around 170 when they first meet)]] on ''Series/{{Torchwood}}''. It's implied that, even though he wasn't a complete ingenue, Ianto never had a boyfriend before Jack. And he does expand his skills and grow quite a lot as a person while working for Jack. Jack for his part seems to have hired Ianto mainly for his good looks and good coffee. Subverted a bit in that Ianto set out to seduce Jack first, and only after Jack found out [[LoveMakesYouEvil why]] and [[EasilyForgiven forgave him for it]] did they start having anything approaching a real relationship.
** Also, Jack and the [[DeadPersonImpersonation original Captain Jack Harkness]]. The latter may [[OfficerAndAGentleman not have been a boy anymore]], but [[EthicalSlut compared to Jack]], he was still very young and romantically inexperienced. Sadly, they [[TearJerker only have a few hours]], but Jack tries to guide the younger man into [[MustNotDieAVirgin living his life like it was his last day on Earth]] and [[ClosetKey coming out of the closet]].
** In a way, this trope also reflects the relationship between Jack, when he was a young man, and the Ninth Doctor on ''Series/DoctorWho''. Sexual attraction only played a minor role, at least from the Doctor's point of view, but the Doctor did take on a mentor role and guided Jack on a better path in life.
--->'''Jack''': Wish I'd never met you, Doctor! I was much better off as a coward. *kisses him goodbye*
* In ''Series/DoctorWho'', Vastra's and Jenny's relationship is a lesbian version of this. Vastra is a '''very''' old [[ReallySevenHundredYearsOld reptile warrior woman from the dawn of time]], and Jenny is younger and acts as her "squire" and back-up fighter, as well as her maid as far as the general public are concerned.
* Possibly subverted on ''Series/{{Glee}}''. [[StraightGay Blaine]] is initially set up as [[CampGay Kurt's]] SexyMentor, and he helps Kurt deal with bullying, but it's later revealed that Blaine is actually ''younger'' than Kurt.
* Parodied on ''Series/InLivingColor'', as in the first edition of ''Men on Film'' CampGay critic Blaine Edwards says he disliked ''Film/TheKarateKidPartIII'' because it had too much fighting and no romance between the two lead characters. Given the terms he uses, Blaine is clearly describing this trope. Although co-reviewer Antoine Merriweather, also Camp Gay, felt the violence made the movie more arousing to him, he agreed with Blaine that having this sort of relationship between the two main characters would have been great. Notably, it's the only sketch to feature the duo that had anything to do with this trope.
* The latter half of season three of ''Series/{{Hannibal}}'' [[TheyDo reveals this as its endgame for Will and the titular psychopath]]. While Will is an adult in his early thirties, he's about a decade younger than Hannibal, highly vulnerable and susceptible to manipulation, and [[MrFanservice quite easy on the eyes]]; Hannibal in return is older, highly educated, appreciative of the Classics in art, music, and philosophy, and [[ImAHumanitarian has rather epicurean tastes]]. What starts out as an amusing side project to see how far Will can pushed before he snaps becomes something else entirely as Lector becomes more and more obsessed with proving to Will that they are the same. Hannibal instructs Will on a wide variety of subjects and the two have a series long, protracted debate about the ethics of murder, and artistic perception and appreciation of suffering as divine. [[InLoveWithYourCarnage Ultimately, Will capitulates, working with Hannibal to violently murder another serial killer and afterwards admitting that he thought of it as beautiful]], [[TakingYouWithMe before embracing Hannibal and throwing them both off a cliff and into the sea]]. Season three's Italian setting and continual references to Greco-Roman art, philosophy, and aesthetics cement the connection.
* ''Series/{{Rome}}'':
** There is a rare GenderInvertedTrope example with Servilla, in her late 40s to early 50s, teaching a teenage Octavia about the joys of sapphic love. It doesn't last long, though, as Servilla is very clearly manipulating Octavia for political purposes.
** People also believe that 50-year-old Caesar and teenage Octavian were a thing, because they saw them leave a lonely room at the same time. Turns out Octavian was just helping his great-uncle with a seizure. It's made even more awkward in that [[MyBelovedSmother his mother]] congratulated him on his "catch".
* ''Series/TippingTheVelvet'': A number of the rich lesbians in Ms. Lethaby's circle have partners much younger than them who are kept women. Nan is Diana's Beloved ostensibly, though she's more essentially a sex slave.
* ''Series/LunaNera'': The elderly chief witch Tebe is in a relationship with the middle-aged Janara, whom she taught magic.
* ''Series/InterviewWithTheVampire2022'': In vampire terms, Lestat de Lioncourt is Louis de Pointe du Lac's maker (i.e. the vampire who turned him), and his express purpose for doing this is so that [[ILoveYouVampireSon Louis becomes his eternal lover]]. The second episode focuses on Louis's experience as a fledgling vampire with Lestat (who is much older than him) as his teacher in vampirism, while also being involved in what Lestat calls a "vampire romance."
-->'''Louis:''' [Lestat] was my murderer, my mentor, my lover, and my maker.

* ''Series/InterviewWithTheVampire2022'': Louis de Pointe du Lac describes Lestat de Lioncourt as his mentor and lover, and the second episode focuses on Louis' experience as a fledgling vampire with Lestat (who is much older than him) as his teacher while also being involved in what Lestat calls a "vampire romance."
-->'''Louis:''' ''[about Lestat]'' He was my murderer, my mentor, my lover, and my maker.

* ''Series/InterviewWithTheVampire2022'': As vampires, Lestat de Lioncourt is Louis de Pointe du Lac's [[ILoveYouVampireSon "maker"]] (ie. the vampire who turned him) and thus his mentor. The second episode focuses on Louis's experience as a fledgling vampire with Lestat (who is much older than him) as his teacher, while also being involved in what Lestat calls a "vampire romance."

This dynamic applies to a gay male couple (or simply an {{ambiguous|lyGay}} one) in which one partner is much older and acts as a {{mentor}} to another. In this dynamic, Charles is most often powerful and successful, and Bob is most often phyically attractive in [[PrettyBoy one way]] or [[MrFanservice another]].

->''"'The love that dare not speak its name' in this century is such a great affection of an elder for a younger man...It is intellectual, and it repeatedly exists between an older and a younger man, when the older man has intellect, and the younger man has all the joy, hope and glamour of life before him."''
-->-- '''Creator/OscarWilde''' is fond of this trope

Say Bob and Charles are not family, but are close to one another. ''Really'' close. Bob is younger than Charles, and Charles is [[{{Mentors}} quite happy to take Bob under his wing]]. He guides Bob to his place, whether in the world or simply in one social circle. However, Bob and Charles' affection for each other is [[HoYay a bit more]] [[LoveInterest than fatherly]].

This dynamic applies to a gay male couple (or simply an {{ambiguous|lyGay}} one) in which one partner is much older and acts as a {{mentor}} to another. In this dynamic, Charles is most often powerful and successful, and Bob is most often attractive in [[PrettyBoy one way]] or [[MrFanservice another]].

This trope originates in ancient Greece, with [[ValuesDissonance their custom of pederasty.]] The Greek words for this trope are ''erastês'' (ἐραστής, "lover") and ''erômenos'' (ἐρώμενος "beloved"). A very similar system developed independently in Japan, where the partners are the ''nenja'' ("man who loves") and his ''wakashū'' ("young person").[[note]]''wakashu'' technically covers any boy between early childhood and adulthood, and was also used outside of relationship contexts, but by the end of the Edo period it pretty much meant "{{uke}}".[[/note]] High-ranking Chinese courtiers and Buddhist monks also took younger male "lovers" fairly often, but in a less formal system than in Greece and Japan. Greek accounts of the Persians, Spanish accounts of the Maya, and Roman accounts of the Celts also all describe similar pederastic institutions, though in the latter two case this might have been to demonize the conquered cultures.

If there's a significant age difference between them, see AgeGapRomance. If the younger one has a preference for older partners, see LikesOlderMen.

See also {{Seme}}, {{Uke}}, SenpaiKohai, OneeSama, TeacherStudentRomance, SexyMentor, MentorShip, Myth/ClassicalMythology, and MentorInQueerness.

* ''Series/InterviewWithTheVampire2022'': Louis de Pointe du Lac describes Lestat de Lioncourt as his mentor and lover, and the second episode focuses on Louis' experience as a fledgling vampire with Lestat (who is much older than him) as his teacher while also being involved in what Lestat calls a "vampire romance."

* Seigi and Richard, of ''LightNovel/TheCaseFilesOfJewelerRichard.'' Richard, eight years older, a wealthy and succesfuly business man, is college student Seigi's mentor in not only gemstones, but in life, culture, and definitely queerness. They call each other "partners" by the end of volume ten, but Seigi is also still serving as Richard's secretary.

This trope originates in ancient Greece, with [[ValuesDissonance their custom of pederasty.]] The Greek words for this trope are "erastes" (lover) and "eromenos" (beloved). A very similar system developed independently in Japan, where the partners are the ''nenja'' ("man who loves") and his ''wakashu'' ("young person")[[note]]''wakashu'' technically covers any boy between early childhood and adulthood, and was also used outside of relationship contexts, but by the end of the Edo period it pretty much meant "{{uke}}"[[/note]]. High-ranking Chinese courtiers and Buddhist monks also took younger male "lovers" fairly often, but in a less formal system than in Greece and Japan. Greek accounts of the Persians, Spanish accounts of the Maya and Roman accounts of the Celts also all describe similar pederastic institutions, though in the latter two case this might have beento demonise the conquered cultures.

'''Administrivia/NoRealLifeExamplesPlease''' [[noreallife]]

* Two of Creator/{{Plato}}'s early dialogues, the ''Phaedrus'' and the ''Literature/{{Symposium}}'', glorify pederasty as the highest form of love. Pederastic themes also crop up in the ''Lysis'' and the ''Charmides''. However, Plato says that it is nobler to be attracted to older boys, who are more mature and intelligent, than to younger boys, who only have their beauty to offer. He also says that while sexually consummated pederasty can be noble, only chaste pederasty can reach the greatest spiritual heights. He became stricter about the no-sex rule in his later writings. In ''The Symposium'', one character opines that there ought to be a law against courting young boys, as opposed to older boys, because if a man goes after a young boy he is wasting his efforts on an uncertain prospect.

* Crown Prince Xiao Gang of the Chinese Liang Dynasty was a distinguished poet as a young man and wrote a "love poem" to a boy. Later in life he had numerous children. Long after this, between 1630 and 1640, a series of homosexual-themed short stories appeared in China. In one, a twenty-year-old academic pursues a fifteen-year-old fellow scholar and a group of adolescent valets. In another, a soldier with two warrior wives is seduced by a younger male friend.

* Richard Barnfield, of Elizabethan England, wrote a rip-off of Virgil's second eclogue, but also a series of openly erotic sonnets of hopeless adoration to a (perhaps fictional) boy, in the sweetly romantic style of the period.
* Some of Creator/WilliamShakespeare's sonnets are addressed to a woman, some to a beautiful younger man. The poet urges him to marry so as to pass on the inheritance of his beauty.
* ''Don Leon'', a long poem of anonymous authorship, published in 1866 but probably written in the 1830s. It is written in the first-person voice of Lord Byron, and is a passionate defence of homosexuality, directed against the law forbidding sodomy. It describes Byron's love for various boys, refutes the notion that Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed because their inhabitants practised sodomy, and makes reference to the Greek pederastic tradition, including to Creator/{{Plato}} and Socrates and to Epaminondas, who was a great Theban general and statesman and had a younger boyfriend, Cephidorus. Love between two boys or between a man and a boy is the only form of homosexuality mentioned in the poem; love between two men is not considered. It is thought that the poem was written by Byron's friend George Coleman.

* ''Les amitiés particulières'' (1964), the film version of Roger Peyrefitte's novel of the same name, set in a [[CorruptChurch Jesuit]] BoardingSchool [[OneGenderSchool for boys]]. In the book, the schoolboy lovers are fourteen and twelve; in the film, they are fifteen and thirteen. Peyrefitte met his twelve-year-old beloved on the set.

* In John Schlesinger's ''Sunday, Bloody Sunday'' (1971), a doctor in his fifties is having an affair with a 25-year-old male artist, who's also having [[{{Polyamory}} an affair]] with a woman. Both partners are a bit [[GreenEyedMonster jealous]] over their younger lover. We also see another man in his 20s whom it's implied the doctor has had sex with before, perhaps [[TheOldestProfession paying him for it]]. Originally, the age difference wasn't intended to be so large: Schlesinger had wanted Alan Bates, then in his mid-thirties, for the part of the doctor, but Bates couldn't do it so Peter Finch, mid-fifties, played the role instead. Schlesinger got the idea for the film from a relationship he himself had had with a much younger man. They'd broken up but remained on amicable terms. Incidentally, Alan Bates also had relationships with younger men.
* Gerard Blain's ''<<Les Amis>>'' (''The "Friends"'') won the Golden Leopard for Best First Film at the 1971 Locarno Film Festival. In the film, fortysomething Philippe and sixteen-year-old Paul have a classic lover/beloved relationship. Philippe is a fairly wealthy businessman who has no children and whose marriage has become a formality. He is in love with Paul and sexually attracted to him. He [[MealTicket pays for Paul to stay at a fancy resort and have riding lessons]], comforts him when he gets his heart broken by a girl, supports him in his ambition to be an actor, and despite his own private feelings of [[GreenEyedMonster jealousy]] and possessiveness, encourages Paul to go off with friends his own age, in the interests of Paul's development. Paul, though basically heterosexual, is happy to sleep with Philippe and loves him back, "in a different way", according to Blain. Being fatherless, neglected by his family, and poor, he is grateful for all Philippe gives him. ''Un enfant dans la foule'' (''A Child in the Crowd''), a 1976 film by Blain, is set in Paris during and just after the Second World War. A thirteen-year-old boy, also fatherless, poor and neglected by his family, is taken up by various men and also by one woman, who a friend of one of the men. They all have sex with him. One man and the woman are only after sex and treat the boy quite cavalierly, though not cruelly. Another man, a teacher, separated from his wife and kids, temporarily becomes a good mentor to the boy, though the man eventually decides that he can't provide what the boy needs because he doesn't want to take responsibility for him. Blain's films on this subject are highly autobiographical, drawing on his experiences with adults when he was a kid. The teacher in particular is based on someone, also married with kids, who was very important to him back then.
* ''Montreal Main'' (1974), a highly autobiographical film by Frank Vitale. A photographer in his late 20s, also named Frank, ostensibly straight, lives with a bunch of gay hippy types and his HeterosexualLifePartner of five years, who is a straight man of the same age, nicknamed Bozo. Frank and Bozo experiment with mutual masturbation together, but it's not much fun. Then Bozo starts a relationship with a young woman. Frank strikes up a friendship with a 12-year-old boy, Johnny. The nature of the friendship is ambiguous; according to the filmmaker, Frank isn't sure what he wants from Johnny. Frank's gay friends object, not because of the potentially sexual aspects of the relationship -- one of them at least has had sex with younger guys -- but because of the emotional intensity, which they say could be damaging to a young kid. Johnny's father forbids Frank to see Johnny again, but the boy comes round declaring he wants to live with Frank, who [[spoiler:is too scared to go through with it, declaring that he's not ready to be Johnny's father.]] There's also a scene in which a man eyes up two boys, Johnny and a pal, playing an arcade game, and is chased off by one of the gay friends.
* ''Butley'' (1974), the film of Simon Gray's play about a professor of English whose wife and younger boyfriend each, on the same day, leave him for another man. The eponymous protagonist is played by Alan Bates, who himself had several relationships with younger men.
* ''Die Konsequenz'' (''The Consequence'') (1977), based on an autobiographical novel of the same name by Alexander Ziegler. Martin, an actor of about 30, is, like Ziegler was, sent to prison for sex with his 15-year-old boyfriend -- who now has a girlfriend. Martin meets Thomas, the 16-year-old gay son of the prison warder, and the two fall in love and, at Thomas' instigation, have sex. When Martin gets out of prison he finds that Thomas' parents and boss reject Thomas because of his homosexuality, so he and Thomas leave town together, get an apartment and plan for Thomas to go back to school. However, Thomas is taken away by social services and sent to a very unpleasant home for delinquent boys. Martin breaks him out, but Thomas ends up with an older man who says he'll help him but instead blackmails him into becoming his boyfriend. Then the older man throws Thomas out and Thomas becomes a [[TheOldestProfession prostitute]] and finally, having nowhere else to go, returns to the boys' home. At 21 he is released and he and Martin, who in the meantime has had a casual boyfriend nearer his own age, reunite, but [[spoiler:Thomas seems irretrievably damaged. He attempts suicide and then runs away from hospital, and there the film ends.]]

* ''The Lost Boys'', a 1978 BBC miniseries by Andrew Birkin. It's a fictionalised account of J. M. Barrie's (''Literature/PeterPan'') relationships with the five Llewellyn Davies boys. Birkin is the world's foremost Barrie expert and also wrote a factual account, ''J. M. Barrie and the Lost Boys''.

* In ''Abuse'' (1983) by Arthur Bressan, who spent most of his career making gay porn films, a 31-year-old gay film student is making a documentary about child abuse. He meets Thomas, a somewhat effeminate 14-year-old whose parents have brutally physically mistreated him for the past six years, and Thomas becomes the centrepiece of the documentary. Thomas is also gay and becomes interested in the filmmaker. They have a relationship, and eventually [[spoiler:run away together so that Thomas can escape from his awful parents.]] Bressan says this was based on his own experiences with a real boy like Thomas; they became "friends, then lovers, then finally ex-lovers", although, as in the film, Bressan's friends disapproved of Bressan's being involved with such a young boy. This film was praised by Vito Russo, author of Film/TheCelluloidCloset.

* Creator/LordByron wrote a series of celebrated love poems about John Edleston, whom he had fallen in love with when Byron was 17 and Edleston 15, and who died six years later. He also wrote a poem of unrequited love to 15-year-old Loukas Chalandritsanos, 20 years younger than Byron.

* Ralph Chubb, an outlier of the Uranian group, created rhapsodic woodcuts and drawings about the beauty of the adolescent male and the liberating joy of sex between men and boys. In real life, except for a brief fling with a 15-year-old when he was 19, his sex life was unfulfilled. Chubb developed an involved personal mythology, claiming among other things to have had a vision which made clear that he was the prophet of a boy-god who would arrive to save England. "I announce a secret event as tremendous and mysterious as any that has occurred in the spiritual history of the world. I announce the inauguration of a Third Dispensation, the dispensation of the Holy Ghost on earth, and the visible advent thereof on earth in the form of a Young Boy of thirteen years old, naked perfect and unblemished."

* Stefan George, a German poet of aristocratic sympathy whose verse often echoes Greek forms, wrote love poems to adolescent boys, most of them dedicated to the cult of a dead lad named Maximin, whom George had loved.

* ''The Priest and the Acolyte'', a short story by Oxford undergraduate John Francis Bloxam, who had also written a couple of romantic poems about boys. In the story, a 28-year-old Anglo-Catholic [[PedophilePriest priest]] and a 14-year-old acolyte (all acolytes were boys then, of course) fall in love with each other. The boy is the one who starts their relationship: he comes to the priest's room at night and confesses his love. They [[ChastityCouple don't have sex]], but they kiss and hug and at night they spend hours together in the priest's rooms, the acolyte sitting on the priest's lap. Their love brings them both happiness and helps them conduct Mass better too. Eventually another priest, the protagonist's superior, discovers them together, whereat the protagonist responds to this other priest's condemnation with a passionate defense of his own nature and his love for the boy. Afraid of the fallout, and wanting to be together forever, the priest and the acolyte commit suicide together by drinking poisoned Communion wine at a two-person Mass, said by the priest and served at by the acolyte, for the repose of their own souls. This story appeared in the first and only edition of Bloxam's periodical ''The Chameleon: a Bazaar of Dangerous and Smiling Chances''. Bosie Douglas' poem ''Two Loves'', containing the line "I am the Love that dares not speak its name" also appeared in this magazine. The contents of the magazine were used against Creator/OscarWilde at his trial, giving Wilde the opportunity to make the speech in which he said: " 'The Love that dare not speak its name' in this century is such a great affection of an elder for a younger man as there was between [[AsTheGoodBookSays David and Jonathan]], such as Creator/{{Plato}} made the very basis of his philosophy, and such as you find in the sonnets of Michelangelo and [[Creator/WilliamShakespeare Shakespeare]]. It is that deep [[ChastityCouple spiritual]] affection that is as pure as it is perfect. It dictates and pervades great works of art, like those of Shakespeare and Michelangelo, and those two letters of mine, such as they are. It is in this century misunderstood ... It is beautiful, it is fine, it is the noblest form of affection. There is nothing unnatural about it. ... The world mocks at it, and sometimes puts one in the pillory for it." This speech got Wilde a standing ovation. Wilde also said that ''The Priest and the Acolyte'' was badly written but refused to condemn it as immoral; this refusal weighed heavily against him. While Wilde's health was being broken in prison, and then while he was dying in exile, Bloxam became an Anglo-Catholic [[PedophilePriest priest]] and lived a quiet and apparently blameless life, well-liked by his parishioners.

* John Henry Mackay, individualist anarchist, born in Scotland and raised in Germany, wrote various political works and also, from 1905 to 1913, a series of works dedicated to the emancipation of pederasty: ''Die Bücher der namenlosen Liebe'' (''Books of the Nameless Love''). In these books, the boys loved by men are 13 to 18 years old. One book, ''Fenny Skaller'', is a thinly fictionalised account of Mackay's own life and his attraction to and romantic love for boys of 14-17, and particularly those of 15-16. The title character finds that some of the boys willing to sleep with him sponge off him; others are only after thrills; others disappear from his life without warning. Another book in the series, ''Am Rande des Lebens'' (''On the Margin of Life'') is a collection of Mackay's poems: about unrequited love for boys, about quick casual sex with boys, about sentimental longing for boys only seen once or twice, about judges who condemn men who like boys. Mackay also wrote the pederastic novel ''Der Puppenjunge'' (''The Hustler''). In the novel, a 15-year-old boy, Gunther, comes to Berlin from the countryside and becomes a hustler. Hermann, a young man working for a publisher, falls head over heels in love with Gunther, who at first doesn't care, and leaves him for a wealthy count who simply likes to watch Gunther lying naked on a bearskin. Gunther grows bored and returns to Hermann, who is deliriously happy, but then Gunther is picked up on the street and taken into care by the authorities. He escapes and comes back to Hermann, whom he grows to love in return. [[spoiler:Then they are discovered, Hermann is imprisoned for 'gross indecency', and Gunther is sent away to be a butcher's apprentice.]] Christopher Isherwood praised this book's realistic portrayal of the Berlin homosexual world.

* Some writings by Karol Szymanowski, one of Poland's greatest composers. He wrote four poems in French, then the lingua franca of Eastern Europe, to his fifteen-year-old Russian boyfriend Boris Kochno, and also wrote a pederastic-themed novel, now lost.

* Wilfred Owen, the greatest poet of the First World War, wrote romantically-tinged poems to the various boys he befriended, as well as one about a boy prostitute and another about surreptitiously kissing the hand of a boy acolyte.
* Creator/SiegfriedSassoon, who knew Owen during the war, wrote a few poems about his grief over death from a bullet wound of young David Thomas, with whom Sassoon had been in unrequited love.

* T. E. Lawrence wrote a couple of poems about Dahoum, an Arab youth whom he loved and who died young.

* Jan Hanlo, one of the most important Dutch poets, also a prose writer in the latter part of his career, was attracted to boys and wrote a lot about his feelings. Of particular significance are his love poems to a twelve-year-old named Josje, and a book of letters, ''Go to the mosk'', which concentrates mainly on Hanlo's sexual orientation.
* Jean Genet's novels, memoirs and poems record his attraction to, infatuation with and relationships with various somewhat younger men.

* Harold Norse, [[Creator/TheBeatGeneration Beat]] poet, wrote several poems about attraction to and sex with 14-year-old boys.

* Hakim Bey, anarchist Sufi, writes a great many poems about man-boy relationships as a form of liberation from the chains of the family and society.

** The schoolboy version of this trope is a major element in Fry's memoir ''Moab is My Washpot'', although he mentions that sometimes older boys just went for younger ones because they still kind of looked like girls. The young Stephen also had a comparable but platonic relationship with a younger boy whom he saw as kind of a cute, helpless little pet and therefore decided to take under his wing. His main schoolboy crush was a boy his own age, though.

* Tom Robinson's classic gay anthem from 1976, 'Glad to Be Gay', contains, among other condemnations of mistreatment of homosexuals, the line "Make sure your boyfriend's at least 21." At the time, the UK age of consent for heterosexual acts was 16, whereas for homosexual acts it was 21. This caused not a few hassles for men with younger boyfriends. Later it was lowered to 18, but not until 2000 were the ages of consent equalised. By that point, the idea that a grown man and a 16-year-old boy might want to have sex together had become pretty taboo, so the campaigners' arguments focused on equality and the rights of teenage gay lovers.
** The full line is "Make sure your boyfriend's at least 21/So only your friends and your brothers get done." (Note: 'to get done' in UK slang means to get into legal trouble.) This was a reference to Peter Wells, a young man who had been imprisoned for having sex with a lad of 18. Robinson sang this very pointedly at the Secret Policeman's Ball, an Amnesty International charity concert. Amnesty were at the time refusing to acknowledge those imprisoned for homosexual offences as human rights cases.

** In ''Theatre/EdwardII'', a character recites a list of famous male/male couples, justifying homosexual relationships by saying that "The mightiest kings have had their minions...And not kings only, but the wisest men." Most of these are lover/beloved couples: Hercules and Hylas, Tully and Octavius, Socrates and Alcibiades, Achilles and Patroclus -- Achilles and Patroclus are not said to be lovers in the Iliad, but were seen as erastes and eromenos by later Greeks, although in the Iliad Patroclus is the elder. Alexander and Hephaestion, who were coevals, are also mentioned in the list. The historical Edward and his boyfriend Gaveston were actually the same age, but lover/beloved was the predominant homosexual trope in Marlowe's day: people learned the trope from the Greek and Roman classics they read at school, as the list shows. Marlowe himself is supposed to have said "All they that love not tobacco and boys are fools."

* Inverted and deconstructed in ''Manga/{{Loveless}}''. The older partner, Soubi's, "name" is Beloved and he has been trained to submit to whoever is the Sacrifice in his pairings. The ''much'' younger Ritsuka's "name" is Loveless; he struggles between his affection for Soubi and his own submissive personality that his brother took advantage of.
* In ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'', this is one way to interpret the relationship between Zabuza and Haku.
* In ''Manga/{{Marginal}}'', there are no women in the world and humans are an all-male OneGenderRace, except for a queen bee-like individual who produces babies called "Mother". Thus, Lover and Beloved becomes the norm: men adopt and mentor youths (called "Iroko" i.e. "coloured child" due to a mark on their skin which shows that they are not mature), who in return act as passive sexual partners until they come of age.

[[folder:Light Novels]]

* Seigi and Richard, of ''LightNovel/TheCaseFilesOfJewelerRichard.'' Richard, eight years older, a wealthy and succesfuly business man, is college student Seigi's mentor in not only gemstones, but in life, culture, and definitely queerness. They call each other "partners" by the end of volume ten, but Seigi is also still serving as Richard's secretary.

[[/folder]]

[[folder:Myths & Religion]]

[[folder:Theater]]

* In 1961s ''Film/{{Victim}}'', which uses elements of the plot of ''Different from the Others'', a lawyer nearing 40 gets to know a young man about half that, who hero-worships him and with whom he shares a mutual attraction, though the older guy breaks it off because "he was getting too fond of me" -- or, as his wife suggests, "you were getting too fond of him". Said young man has also had a relationship with a middle-aged bookshop owner, who is deeply in love with him and wants to give him a home and a job for life.

* In ''FanFic/SithAcademy'', a parody of ''Franchise/StarWars'' with Darth Maul as the VillainProtagonist, that this is pretty much standard for Jedi Masters and their Padawans, with Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi's relationship being [[TastesLikeDiabetes sickeningly saccharine]] at times. A number of stories mention former male Padawans of Mace Windu, and even Yoda gets into the act with his students. It's hinted that {{Teacher Student Romance}}s are equally common for Jedi partnerships where both are female, or when one is male and the other female, but no couples of these sorts appear in the stories. Curiously, even though Sidious is homosexual and Maul is bisexual, it's explicitly mentioned that relationships are forbidden between a Sith Master and apprentice because they would either be too competitive with each other, or else tend to mellow out and lose their edge. This doesn't stop either of them from having WarShip trysts with the Jedi, however.

This trope originates in ancient Greece, with [[ValuesDissonance their custom of pederasty.]] The Greek words for this trope are "erastes" (lover) and "eromenos" (beloved). A very similar system developed independently in Japan, where the partners are the ''nenja'' ("man who loves") and his ''wakashu'' ("young person")[[note]]''wakashu'' technically covers any boy between early childhood and adulthood, and was also used outside of relationship contexts, but by the end of the Edo period it pretty much meant "{{uke}}"[[/note]]. High-ranking Chinese courtiers and Buddhist monks also took younger male "lovers" fairly often, but in a less formal system than in Greece and Japan.

This dynamic applies to a gay couple (or simply an {{ambiguous|lyGay}} one) in which one partner is much older and acts as a {{mentor}} to another. In this dynamic, Charles is most often powerful and successful, and Bob is most often attractive in [[PrettyBoy one way]] or [[MrFanservice another]].

If there's a significant age difference between them, see AgeGapRomance. If the younger one has a preference for older partners, see LikesOlderMen and LikesOlderWomen.

* Mary Renault's books, because she wrote a lot about ancient Greece, where this trope was the standard for homosexual relationships. In ''The Last of the Wine'', Alexias' lover Lysis is about 8 years older than him, which wouldn't be much except that they fall for each other when Alexias is 15 and start a relationship when Alexias is 16. In ''The Mask of Apollo'', Nikeratos is about a dozen years older than his life partner Thettalos, and the relationship starts when Thettalos is 18; Plato (yes that Plato) has an ongoing friendship with a man, Dion, whose lover he was when Dion was 20 and Plato was 40. In ''The Persian Boy'', 26-year-old Alexander the Great is seduced by 16-year-old Bagoas, which is the start of a 7-year relationship, lasting till Alexander's death. In ''The Praise Singer'', 15-year-old Harmodios embarks on a love affair with Aristogeiton, a man in his late 20s. ''The King Must Die'', ''The Bull from the Sea'', ''Fire From Heaven'' and ''Funeral Games'' don't feature this trope so prominently, but they all take place against the backdrop of societies in which young men, and sometimes older men, have relationships with teenaged boys and, if both are upper-class, are expected to mentor the boys. ''The Charioteer'', Renault's last contemporary novel, set during World War II, has its twenty-three-year-old protagonist Laurie involved in two relationships: he's the Lover to nineteen-year-old Andrew, the Beloved to twenty-six-year-old Ralph. Incidentally, the teenaged Alexander and Hephaistion subvert this trope in ''Fire From Heaven'' by being a.) lovers and b.) the same age; this surprises Alexander's father Philip. However, these days historians think that relationships between adolescent coevals, albeit with a lover/beloved dynamic still obtaining, were probably common in ancient Macedon; each area had its own tradition of homosexuality. Bagoas, who comes from a different culture, sees Alexander as Hephaistion's "boy" and takes pride in giving Alexander the chance to play the "man's" role. Obviously, the Alexander/Bagoas relationship, the Harmodios/Aristogeiton relationship and Plato's relationships with younger guys are fictional depictions of actual relationships recorded by history.

** There is a rare female example with Servilla, in her late forties to early fifties, teaching a teenage Octavia about the joys of sapphic love. It doesn't last long, though, as Servilla is very clearly manipulating Octavia for political purposes.

* RareFemaleExample in Christa Winsloe's ''Gestern und Heute'' (''Yesterday and Today''), about a young teenaged girl's experiences at a strict [[OneGenderSchool single-sex]] BoardingSchool. [[TeacherStudentRomance The girl falls for a young female teacher, who loves her back but sticks to a chaste mentoring role]]. Things come unstuck because of the harsh, unfeeling way the school is run. The play, also called ''Ritter Nérestan'' (''Knight Nérestan'') and ''Krankheit der Liebe'' (''Sickness of Love''), was very popular. It is based on Winsloe's novel ''Das Kind Manuela'' (''The Child Manuela''), itself based on Winsloe's own experiences at boarding school. It was later filmed as ''Mädchen in Uniform'' (''Girls in Uniform''), with a screenplay written by Winsloe.

* A RareFemaleExample of this in one of Eve Ensler's ''Vagina Monologues'', "The Little Coochie Snorcher that Could". A 13-year-old girl who when she was younger was violently raped by a man is given vodka by a 24-year-old woman who then gently seduces her. She describes the experience as positive and concludes, "Now I'll never need to rely on a man." In response to the controversy this caused, Ensler later raised the girl's age to 16. [[DoubleStandardRapeFemaleOnFemale The girl adds defiantly that some people would call this rape, but "well, I say if it was rape, it was a good rape."]] Ensler removed this line, again because it caused massive controversy. Ensler herself was raped by her father as a child.

* In ''ComicBook/TopTen'', DaChief Steve Traynor and his partner Wulf have been a couple for about 30 years, but the prequel graphic novel ''The 49ers'' revealed that their relationship started when Steve was still a teenager and Wulf was over ten years older. It attempts to avoid the more dubious elements of this trope by having Steve actively pursue Wulf, and Wulf at one point explicitly challenges Steve about whether he's emotionally mature enough for a relationship.

* In ''Manga/{{Marginal}}'', there is no woman in the world and human is an all-male OneGenderRace, except for a queen bee-like individual who produces babies called "Mother". Thus, Lover and Beloved becomes the norm: men adopt and mentor youths (called "Iroko" i.e. "coloured child" due to a mark on their skin which shows that they are not mature), who in return act as passive sexual partners until they come of age.

All but a ForgottenTrope nowadays, especially since some of these relationships involve [[{{Ephebophile}} underage teens]]. It may, however, show up in TheTwink's ComingOutStory, and the social circle the older partner leads the younger into is likely to be [[WhereEverybodyKnowsYourFlame the gay community]].

All but a ForgottenTrope nowadays, especially since some of these relationships involve [[{{Ephebophile}} underage teens]]. Even if the younger partner is considered an adult, the inequality of the pairing can still make it morally questionable. It may, however, show up in TheTwink's ComingOutStory, and the social circle the older partner leads the younger into is likely to be [[WhereEverybodyKnowsYourFlame the gay community]].

All but a ForgottenTrope nowadays, especially since some of these relationships involve [[{{Squick}} underage teens.]] It may, however, show up in TheTwink's ComingOutStory, and the social circle the older partner leads the younger into is likely to be [[WhereEverybodyKnowsYourFlame the gay community]].