Neil Patrick Harris is nearly nude (see below) on the cover of the latest issue of Rolling Stone magazine.

With a hat covering his private parts, The How I Met Your Mother star dishes on coming out and sex, among other things.

Harris admitted that revealing his sexual orientation in 2006 was a godsend for his career.

“Once all the cards were on the table, I got more opportunities than ever,” Harris said in Rolling Stone. “Some actors don’t get hired because you can’t look into their soul and see what they’re like, because they’re kept guarded.”

Harris also talked about the importance of avoiding an “awkward lay.”

“No one likes an awkward lay. You way to lay someone who wants to lay you; you want to say who you like and get to lay that person. That’s good sex. You don’t want to lay some girl that you’re supposed to lay, who you don’t like, but you don’t want anyone to know that. Like, neither person is having good sex. You might as well beat off.”

Harris is currently starring as a transsexual German glam rocker in Broadway’s Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

Photo credit: Rolling Stone magazine/Terry Richardson