Which in a way they are. Like Sandra Bernhard, Cho is one of the few comedians whose stand-up success has its roots in the gay and lesbian community. When she appeared at Berkeley Performance Center two years ago with “I’m The One That I Want,” her last show, you would have thought that you had wandered into Avalon on Sunday night. And just walking down the street with her in Provincetown becomes something of Cho love-fest: Fans stop her every few feet, some tongue-tied to be in her presence. Within seconds, though Cho makes them feel at ease. In fact her greatest strength may be the easy rapport she has with gay people.

Her new show is something of a companion piece to “I’m the One That I Want,” mixing her edgy comic outlook with more serious themes. Throughout it she brings a raw energy to a variety of personal subjects, from colonic irrigation and her experiments with S&M to more serious subjects such as body image, eating disorders, and self-esteem. Her openness is completely disarming, whether she’s talking about her sexual wants (“I don’t know if I’m a bottom because I like it or I’m a bottom because I’m lazy”); her bulimia (“You know you have an eating disorder when you’re eating desserts at McDonald’s”); gay marriage (“A country that denies a gay man the right of a bridal registry is a fascist state”); and even herself (“That is such a good Margaret Cho drag queen,” she says she overheard someone say while she was walking down Commercial Street).

Bay Windows sat down with the 33-year-old comedian after a well-received show last Saturday night, and she explained just how “Notorious CHO” came about.

”This material comes from a hard core year of weird experimentation in my sex life, in my relationships, and also in working all these things out in therapy. So it’s very reflective. But it is also things and places I’ve passed through. I’m really onto a different phase of my life now. So I feel comfortable talking about these things because they’re over.”

Without trying

The title of the show came from an off-hand remark the comedienne made when someone asked her what the title of her next show would be. And it fit, partly because she can be shocking without really trying. At one point she says in a most matter of fact way that she’d “rather get fucked by a leather dildo in front of 200 people than go out on a first date.” But far from being offended, her audience laughs with recognition.

”That line resonates with audience,” she said. “And it’s an interesting thing to resonate because it sounds so incredibly absurd, but it’s a truth. It’s something that I really feel, so I’m glad that people connect to that. It’s important to acknowledge these things that are supposed to be so secret and private really aren’t so private because everybody feels that.”

She decided to try the material out in Provincetown because the summer resort offered her a composite of her core audience, and because it’s a venue she wouldn’t likely come to on her national tour this fall, which will take her to some 34 cities, including Boston where she will play the Wang Theatre in October.

For Cho, gay audiences are the best.”I wanted to craft a show for the audience I enjoy working with the most. I mean performing for gays and lesbians is the most fun because it’s like being with my friends.... They’re my family, people that I see all the time, so my sense of humor, my sensibility comes from the gay community.”

Cho, who grew up in San Francisco in a Korean and Chinese household, remembers dreaming of doing stand-up as a child. “When I was a really young teenager-when I was 13 or 14-I would have dreams about it. I knew I would be very successful. I could feel it. The way I perform now, especially tonight, which was a really great night, the maneuvering of the energy, the manipulation of the crowd, the working with people’s laughs so that almost like a dialogue is happening-I had very vivid dreams of that. I knew that would be the right thing to do, so I’ve been focused on that from a very young age.”

Early in her career she performed in a lot of gay clubs (including a gig in Provincetown in 1993) before she received the break that would be any stand-up comic dream: her own network comedy series. That series, “All American Girl,” was an attempt to cash in on the success of “Roseanne,” but it proved a dismal failure, and left Cho doubting herself. Her harrowing experiences with that show are chronicled in “I’m the One That I Want,” which is to be released in DVD and video in October.

A wide swath

But one of the pluses of that experience was that the show gave her exposure to a wide swath of gays and lesbians throughout the country who responded to her.

”Even though the show wasn’t queer at all-it was incredibly mainstream and mediocre-there was this connection made. I think people connected with me, which was really great.”

Throughout her new show, Cho aligns herself with gays and lesbians. How does she define herself?

”I’m a gay man, if I must be labeled,” she said laughing. “That’s really what I am. So I use ‘we’ to identify myself with gay men, all my sisters-all my big posse out there.”

And even though she jokes about gay marriage, she sees its adoption as integral to gay and lesbian acceptance in mainstream America. “I think the gay marriage thing is an example of the way we are treated in society. They give us a lot of lip service in terms of showing gay culture in the media; but when it comes down to real basic rights and real equality, it’s bullshit. Because gay marriage is what it’s about. If society took these solid traditions that make up American culture and made them applicable for everyone-that is, for gay and lesbians too- then there would be true equality. It’s not necessarily about the idea of getting married, the question is how equal are we?”

One character who runs through all of Cho’s work from its beginning is her mother, whose unique point-of-view is expressed in such a thick accent that it might be mistaken as a caricature. Yet, it is not.

”It’s funny because it is not exaggerated. It is really her mannerism and her way of speaking. It’s her. And she’s not offended by it all. I’ve been doing her since I was a kid and people always say that my impersonation is her. And I know that she would like my new show .... She’s a big supporter of being open in your life.”

Does Cho ever feel she’s being too self-obsessed with her work?

”Yes, definitely,” she said laughing. “But I think I’m creating my work not about myself but to use it as an example for other people to throw themselves up against. They use my life as a transparency over theirs, to be able to compare and contrast. So it’s not a show about me, but about them. What I’m saying is about me, but their reaction is about them.”