In fact, Cho, who fine-tuned her performance in Europe before launching the tour Aug. 30 in Miami Beach, Fla., said audiences in Scotland were visibly horrified.

“They literally had their hands over their mouths in shock,” Cho said with a laugh. “It was really great to come back [to the United States] where it takes a lot to shock people.”

Cho has never shied away from sexually explicit material. She’s talked about her fascination with male genitalia (“Dicks are like snowflakes, every one is different”), about the particular drag-queen scents of San Francisco that remind her of her childhood (“The smell of sweaty balls in pantyhose”), and, of course, the “Ass Master” routine that has become a staple of her performances.

But “The Notorious C.H.O.” which will be performed at 7:30 p.m. and 10 p.m. Oct. 18 at the Keswick Theatre in Glenside, plunges into even more bawdy sexual territory, including Cho’s recent penchant for sex clubs.

“I had a boyfriend who was very into that,” she explained in a recent interview. “It was like going to a country club, only, you know, filled with all kinds of sex stuff.”

And yet, even the edginess of the sex-club scene eventually lost its appeal for the 32-year-old California native.

“It was boring, and I got lonely,” she said.

But she did learn that while sex-club attendees might seem as if they’re the pinnacle of the sexual avant-garde, perception is vastly different from reality.

“The people weren’t very interesting,” she noted matter-of-factly. “And they definitely weren’t great conversationalists.”

She also discovered more about her own sexuality.

“I’m definitely not a top,” she joked. “I don’t know if I’m a bottom because it turns me on, or if I’m just too lazy. And I know I’m too lazy for S/M and leather.”

If it sounds like Cho has a firm grasp on the gay-male vernacular, that’s very much the case. Cho shares a connection with her gay fans that is unparalleled among other female comedians, even such gay icons as Ellen DeGeneres and Sandra Bernhard.

Perhaps it’s due to Cho’s childhood growing up on way-gay Polk Street in San Francisco, where drag queens were among the first to encourage her stand-up comedy. Maybe it’s due to the fact that Cho has always been drawn to gay men - “I am a fag-hag,” she said.

Or it might just be that Cho considers herself a gay man in drag.

“I really do think of myself as a gay man,” she explained. “There’s so much in my life that’s gay. I hang with gay men all the time. And we really do keep each other happy. It’s not at all a one-way street. I have great relationships with gay, men and I always have had them. I also have an incredible affection and love for gay culture.”

And like Madonna, Cher and other stars with an affinity with gay-male culture and imagery, Cho draws heavily from it for her art. In fact, although Cho described her new show as strongly feminist, she also said it draws very much from the gay-male experience.

“There’s a strong undercurrent of talking about women’s bodies and the political nature of women’s bodies, and that’s directly related to the gay-male experience,” she said. “Women and gay men are constantly judged by what’s on the outside and the way we look. It’s such an important fact in how we value ourselves. So I wanted to talk about who set that standard. Why does it exist? What does that mean for us today?”

The show also is very pro-woman, and is inspired in both content and title by today’s slate of rap musicians, particularly Cho’s favorite female rap stars.

“I don’t talk about rap or perform rap, but it is in the same spirit as the music and the rappers,” she said. “I love performers like L’il Kim and Missy Elliot. I think they’re strong and beautiful.”

Another inspiration - and continuing source of material - is Cho’s mother, who has been the butt of the comedian’s loving but mocking anecdotes for years. Cho has skewered her mother’s “long-ass” messages left on the comedian’s answering machine (“Are you gay? Are you gay? Pick up the phone. If you don’t pick up the phone, that means you’re gay. Only gays screen calls”) her fond remembrances of living in Korea (“Mommy didn’t have prom. There was no prom in Korea. Only war”) and, of course, the classic “Ass Master” magazine routine: “Oh! It was ass right away! I thought there would be table of contents, then ass.”

Fans of Cho’s “Mom” jokes won’t be disappointed with the new show, Cho promised.

“Of course I talk about my mom,” she assured. “People will be very excited. She is, too, actually. She loves it. She’s starting to think that she’s the Korean J-Lo.”

“The Notorious C.H.O.” follows Cho’s highly acclaimed 1999 tour “I’m the One That I Want,” which offered up a hilarious but painful look at the comedian’s life following the cancellation of her one-time ABC comedy “All-American Girl.” Cho detailed the abuse she suffered while making the sitcom - including being prodded by program execs to lose so much weight that she ended up in the hospital with kidney failure, the depression she experienced after the show was axed, the spiral of drugs and alcohol that consumed her, and the arduous ladder she had to climb out of the mess that her life had become.

For some, it was surprising to hear such gritty, harrowing experiences played onstage, particularly during a comedy performance. But Cho would rather offer up a piece of herself to her fans than stick to safer comedic territory.

“To me, it’s just much more interesting,” she said. “When I see a performer, I want to know who they are, what it would be like to be them. I use my work as kind of a transparency of my life, and as a way to compare traumas and pain with my audiences.”

But don’t expect what Cho presents to be an absolute mirror reflection of her life. While the Korean-American comedian is perfectly willing to mine many aspects of her life for her comedy, what she delivers in her act is what she calls only a small sliver of herself.

“My life is actually very private,” Cho noted. “I only reveal a certain aspect of my life. The rest is very private. People walk away with a sense that they know me, but they really only know what I’ve shown them. That’s what every good performer tries to do.”

Bob Adams is a former PGN associate editor.