When you’re nervous to speak in front of people onstage, a common tactic is to picture the audience naked. But what if the crowd has not only seen you naked but they’ve watched you have sex? It’s a possibility for comedians like Sovereign Syre, who is among the growing class of L.A. comics who’ve made a transition from starring in porn to doing stand-up. Luckily, snickers in the crowd never faze Syre when it comes to getting laughs.

“If you’re a porn person that does comedy and you talk about it, it’s not a gimmick because it’s about your life,” Syre says. “In the first two years I did somewhere around 600 sets anywhere I could get on a stage. If people were uncomfortable with me doing stand-up and porn, they weren’t saying it to my face.”

Despite being seemingly worlds apart, comedy and porn have always been linked in some form or another. From the goofy humor of X-rated spoofs to the beloved crassness of edgy comics who live to shock the prude out of us, both styles of entertainment require a certain level of fearlessness. So in theory, an adult actor transitioning to the stand-up stage isn’t all that strange. However, those who’ve made the switch say it’s a lot different in the real world.