I was thinking "Hannah and Will Arendt"? The History of Philosophy? Found no such book, no such people.
Well, I found a Hannah Arendt, a rather prominent philosopher. Turns out she became involved with her Professor, Martin Heidegger. As Dennis Weiser remarks: "The salient fact to keep in mind here is that Hannah Arendt was scarcely eighteen years old, Heidegger in his mid-thirties when their unhappy love affair began. I think we all know that that amounts to". Well, I didn't, but I guessed: "Pedophilia"? "An older professor exploiting a student for sex"? Or what?
I actually know of several people who, while college students (age 18-19) became involved with professor-mentors whose ages were anywhere from 40 to 70. The relationships seem to have been good for them all. I would not call them "pedophilic" relationships - though I suspect many people would.
Now "pederasty" comes, of course, from the word Plato used to describe the love (including erotic love) between an older man and a "youth". For Plato and Socrates, such love was the ideal. But times have changed.
Earlier this century, teenagers could legally marry when they were younger: 16, even 14; sometimes even 12. But contemporary sensibility is shocked by such ideas. And perhaps that is a good thing after all. It is true that children and teenagers can be exploited by adults. I can go along with "age of consent" laws; but do we really need molestation hysteria? I do want children protected; but why is it stigmatized to even discuss what the "age of consent" ought to be?
And this revulsion towards middle-aged people who are attracted to twenty-somethings!
By the way, I did finally locate the authors of The History of Philosophy - only it was actually The Story of Civilization. It wasn't "Will and Hannah Arendt"; it was Will and Ariel Durant (how did I get so confused?!)
Will and Ariel met and fell in love, indeed, when she was 14 and he was 27. As an old woman, she described the later part of their courtship:
"One day...he stooped so low - or rose to such courage - as to kiss my unresisting breasts..."
"The discovery that my teacher had become my lover brought me a strange mixture of happiness and doubt".
"...I did not feel anything wrong in it, and I would have cried out in protest at any suggestion that all that had happened was that a sexually starved man had met a nubile girl".
Now, of course, we snicker at such things - and would pack young Will Durant off to prison and humiliation.
Will and Ariel were married the following year and lived together well over 50 years.
But, of course, they were involved with anarchists at the time. This was 1912. I am no anarchist; I merely believe that the best rules allow for exceptions.
Let us protect our children, but let us not lynch lightly. When we use strong words, may we use them wisely!