Bernard Boursicot

Bernard Boursicot (born 1944) is a French diplomat who was caught in a honeypot trap (seducing him to participate in Chinese espionage), by Shi Pei Pu, a male Peking opera singer who performed female roles, whom Boursicot believed to be female. This espionage case became something of a cause célèbre in France in 1986, as Boursicot and Shi were brought to trial, due to the nature of the unusual sexual subterfuge alleged. The case was again back under a public spotlight when a play loosely based on this affair, M. Butterfly by David Henry Hwang, premiered in 1988 and yet again as the film adaptation of the play of the same name directed by David Cronenberg was released in 1993. Periodic re-stagings of the play and television airings of the film based on it continue to spark interest in the espionage case at the heart of the fictional works of art.

Biography

Boursicot was born in 1944 and first met Shi Pei Pu in China while posted to the French Embassy in Peking as an accountant in 1964. He was 20 years old and Shi was 26. They met at an embassy reception and shortly began a relationship.