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Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre

Pioneers in the existentialist philosophy, Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre became somewhat of an intellectual power couple at the height of their popularity. At the time, Beauvoir was at the center of controversy for her alleged seduction of female students and subsequently passing them on to Sartre. As a result, she was no longer allowed to teach in France. But it seems that she and Sartre had an open relationship.

According to The Guardian, “There was Sartre’s important dictum of ‘transparency’ – the vow that they would never lie to each other the way married couples did… It was he who engaged in countless affairs, to which she responded on only a few occasions with longer-lasting passions of her own.”