Missed the edit window. Damn work and all.
I want to add that the gay, male, friends I have had, and the one I am still friends with, have all said they liked boys since elementary school. Just like the rest of us who had 1st grade crushed on the opposite sex. I remember in first grade when Sarah G. touched my hand and I told my friend Scott that I would never wash that hand again because now it was sacred.
The ‘‘I haven’t been with the opposite sex since I was badly burned by them’’ pattern seems more common with women to me, but since I don’t care how people roll or why* I can’t say I’ve actually looked into it, or how much cultural/observational bias plays into it.
*except in the general sense of how do we make a more just society and ease the transition for people who find themselves where they weren’t expecting to be.
I’ll never understand why some people refuse to say exactly where they are. Is the OP afraid that he’s going to be drawn and quartered if they find out he’s been posting here or something?
Oh god yes. What an ass she had! 
I’m guessing somewhere in Africa (most likely) or rural southeast Asia (less so) from his description. The funny thing with the Dopers is that there’s a decent chance that someone here could explain it to him in whatever he speaks as his first language if were to say what it is. At least by PM, since foreign language posting is frowned upon.
As far as what drives us to be gay, nothing does. Or more accurately, whatever drives you to be straight drove me gay. As far as gay humor, we have a TON of it, but it’s not exported as widely AFAIK. Margaret Cho and Kathy Griffin are probably the most well-known gay guy favorites to the rest of the world, but the humor probably wouldn’t translate well.
For instance, Margaret’s bit about CC Bloom’s Bar and Grill doesn’t make sense if you don’t catch the reference to Beaches and Bette Midler’s career in general and what she and that movie mean as a part of the American gay subculture.
I’m afraid I owe you an apology. I judged you without finding out all the details.
There are plenty of people in the US who judge Gays harshly and consider it some sort of defect. There’s also lot’s of research to show that isn’t true.
Now that I have more information I realize you weren’t trying to offend. I apologize for reacting without asking any questions.
This is a great question from you and I thank you for asking it. So many people, and I mean everywhere including this part of the world (I’ve talked to my share), are not only ignorant but also completely unwilling to learn or even talk.
I think people have given a fairly good turn around the issue. The main point is that whatever label people use, we don’t know what causes them to have their particular sexual orientation except that it’s fairly sure that in at least the great majority of people, it arises very early in life or before birth and cannot be intentionally changed.
As for humour about gay people, for me it all depends how it’s being played. A comedian can certainly mock stereotypes of gay people in a way that’s not homophobic, or s/he can play with those stereotypes in a way that’s gay-positive; or else the humour is simply snarking at gay people, and that I don’t enjoy. A smart woman once said that satire is meant to be directed at the powerful; when it’s directed at the powerless, it’s not just mean, it’s vulgar.
Velocitri, I just wanted to say that I found your later posts refreshing. It appeared at first that this thread would get confrontational. It’s rare on these forums to find someone fix that before it happens by humbly apologizing, and being so genuinely interested in the answer.
Well, not all Americans like those jokes. In fact, all three that you mentioned would, I’m sure, insult a fair number of people and get people angry. Americans aren’t a unified body with one mind, after all; many Americans would be offended but many Americans would find those jokes hilarious. Jokes about gay people are pretty much the same.
There are also degrees of offensiveness to the joke itself. Putting on a lisp and a higher pitched voice to mock the typical stereotype “gay voice” might be okay, but jokes about how “all gay people molest little children!” certainly would not, since it’s more offensive, ignorant, and hurtful, and at some ambiguous point, it crosses the line. The line also changes based on who the speaker is - it’s more acceptable for someone to criticize their own group, so that a black comedian can get away with far more black jokes than a white one, a Jewish comedian can get away with far more Jewish jokes than a Christian one, an a gay comedian can get away with far more gay jokes than a straight one.
I was molested by my older sister as a child and developed an intense sex drive at a very young age, but it was only directed towards females until my mid-teen years, when a man offered to give me oral sex. I let him, and after that I would go to places where I could have anonymous sex with men. I still thought of myself as being primarily straight, and once my acne cleared up and I went to college I had sex with women almost exclusively for several years, but later I started having sex with men occasionally. Even then I didn’t form relationships, but as I got older I started forming longer laster relationships with men and today (age 44) I am almost exclusively homosexual.
I know that at least some homosexuals are that way because they were exposed to gay sex at an early age, and that “situational homosexuality” can change into something else.
Many people believe that we are all, to some degree, bisexual, with the majority of people’s orientation not being in either of the two extremes. So it’s not too much of a stretch for there to be a certain amount of flexibility in most people’s sexual orientation. It’s not a matter of someone “going straight” or “going gay,” it’s more a matter of someone who is maybe 60% straight, and due to some of life’s experiences, he finds himself acting on the other 40% of his sexuality. Obviously it’s not so easy for someone like myself, who is 99+% gay.
Why do you think this? I agree that there is some genetic and prenatal hormonal component. But I would like to see a cite regarding them being the whole explanation.
Thank you WoodenTaco. I’m pretty satisfied with all the posts here. Everyone have been very helpful. Thank you all.
The reason I ask about the jokes is because my country has diversified population, just like the U.S. We’ve had racial/ethnicity issues in the past, but things are getting better, and people got used to hearing jokes about ethnic differences. But the gay issue is moving at a different pace. Hopefully it will get better. BTW, I like that UK show called Little Britain, there’s a part where the fat guy plays ‘the only gay in the village’, the name is Davide Thomas if I’m not mistaken. I think it’s pretty smart. And I think it’s not too offensive, because the main issue is not about being gay… but insisting on being the only gay, a “provincial queen” as one of the characters call it.
PS: This thought just came out: I think straight men here (where I live) are kinda ignorant towards gay because they’re not too confident about their ‘manliness’. They’re afraid that when they start asking questions about gay, people might label them gay or drawn into being gay. I guess that includes me too. We’ll not anymore… 
Thanks again to all who posted…
I think people also tend to define themselves by the options society gives them, that is what you really are: the same person born in Sophocles’ Athens, Victoria’s London, or today’s New York would have very different ideas about what catagories were avalible, and would develop different patterns of sexual behavior, whatever biological influences they might have.