Cheating With The Music Master- Forgotten Trope? Subtropes?

Hope this is the right place to ask about this. Don't think it's a Trope Finder issue, since I'm pretty sure this trope doesn't exist, nor do subtropes.

So, I recently read Six of Crows and its sequel which are set in a fantasy world that's reminiscent of Amsterdam during the "Golden Age of the Dutch Republic" (so like between 1600 and 1800). One of the characters, a 17 year old guy, is rumored to have had a sexual relationship with an also male music teacher, and there's also sort of a subplot/joke with that character's Brainless Beauty stepmother, who is about the same age as him possibly having a romantic/sexual relationship with her singing instructor (she's a terrible but enthusiastic singer).

When I was reading the books, I was reminded of the fact that classic literature written in around the same time period as that series evokes often used this trope, wherein young girls were wooed by a male music teacher (which makes the novel's first example a rare gender flip), such as Les Liaisons dangereuses. And similarly, and perhaps more common, works having the idea of a suitor disguising themselves as a music teacher (or some other tutor) in order to meet with their sweetheart- like with Lucentio and Hortensio in Taming Of The Shrew (respectively disguised as a Latin teacher and a music teacher). Not quite the same thing, but there's also an obscure play by William Wycherly called The Gentleman Dancing Master having to do with this kind of plotline.

So what I'm kind of wondering is about the music teacher plotline being a trope in itself as well as the broader idea of wooing in disguise. I am vaguely reminded of both Cheating with the Milkman and Pizza Boy Special Delivery and the underlying idea of a "service industry" (pun intended) job being well-suited for romancing/seduction.

Thoughts?

Hmmmm. Interesting.

Part of it would be that the tutor (of music, or anything else) would often be a university-level student,, tutoring to provide income, which puts them in that sweet-spot agewise— young enough to be attractive to a younger character, but old enough to be an autonomous actor. Also, the tutoring provides them with regular, socially acceptable opportunities to be alone with the younger character even if she's usually closely chaperoned.

I think you're onto something here. It's probably a Dead Horse Trope now, though, except in period pieces. .

edited 2nd Dec '16 10:22:05 AM by Madrugada

Thanks for the response. Glad my suggestion/thought isn't totally out of left field.

You're definitely on to something with the age range and the "being socially acceptable to be alone with a woman" aspect (I think the latter is key to the whole trope). I'd also say there's something class wise, because being a tutor probably means that the person in question is either an Impoverished Patrician or at worst, of an artistic class that's above working class common laborers. So for the examples that aren't nobles in disguise, you're still talking about someone who would be unsuitable but not totally unsuitable.

Something I forgot to mention- I wonder if to some extent there's some association of lustfulness with musicians from the Middle Ages/Renaissance that's carried through to the present day. I can't really think of a historical/literary example but like in A Song of Ice and Fire, pretty much every bard is a casanova.

edited 2nd Dec '16 10:31:17 AM by Hodor2

The class thing would definitely enter into it. Both ways, actually: the tutor, if an impoverished gentleman would be just "above'' the class a mercantile family would be involved with, or if the family is gentle, noble, or royal, and the tutor isn't, the tutor would be tantalizingly-dangerously below the class they'd normally associate with.

I definitely think you've got something here.

I think just "Romancing the Tutor" is a sufficient trope here. Even if there are plenty of music teacher examples, I don't see any reason to limit it so.

Agreed.

Hmm. Problem with that though is that Teacher/Student Romance is already a trope, but I think this feels like a different animal.

Also doesn't quite fit all of the times when someone is using the tutor thing as a disguise.

Yeah. This is a sibling trope to Student/Teacher Romance, not a subtrope, I think. And I don't like Romancing The Tutor, because well, it's usually the other way around.

Hi again @Hodor2 ! I haven't forgotten this.

After a lot of thinking about this, I think that maybe the trope we're looking for would be something like "private tutoring/coaching as a means to start or carry on an illicit affair/courtship". It's still used now, but rather than the music master or drawing teacher, it's the tennis coach or the golf pro or the art teacher. The other aspects are the same; 1) it's a socially acceptable way for the two people to spend (private) time together without having to sneak around and 2) It's a good cover story even if the "teacher" isn't really a teacher (the "or disguised as the tutor" part).

eta: and the class distinction still works, too, in many cases...

edited 4th Mar '17 10:40:32 AM by Madrugada

Then there are a bunch of stories where two characters are students at the same school and in the same class, but the smarter of the two offers to help the other with their homework as a pretext to get close to them (or the dumber of the two uses the promise of getting close to them as an incentive to help them with their homework).

Also related, yes. Not quite that same, though, and well-enough established that it's it's own trope.