 He attended boarding schools as a youth, where he engaged in multiple homosexual affairs with other students; upon graduation, Boursicot became determined to have sex with a woman for the first time, believing that institutionalized homosexuality among boarding students was merely a rite of passage.He 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.