Neil Patrick Harris Goes Fully Nude & Opens Up About Sex in Rolling Stone

He's vamping it up on Broadway in "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" and Neil Patrick Harris took a moment to strip down for the cover of Rolling Stone.

Posing naked for the Terry Richardson-shot spread, the "How I Met Your Mother" star opened up about his decision to come out as gay and talked about how to avoid awkward sex.

On preparing for "Hedwig" role:
"I need to eat more. That's becoming apparent. I'm so intent on looking feminine, on changing my silhouette. But I'm running out of energy, and it's affecting my mood."

On his image:
"I have always been highly aware of how I was presenting myself... [my] desire to not seem overly effeminate [seems like a] stupid concern [now that I'm] playing overtly feminine and loving it."

On coming out in 2006:
"I think it would be easier to make that leap at that age now, because there are so many examples. But not back then, in a tiny town in the middle of the mountains of New Mexico. I wasn't troubled by it. Playing footsie with a friend under the table at school was very charged, to me, but I didn't know then what to do about it."

On how it affected his career:
"Once all cards were on the table, I got more opportunities than ever. 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."

On being a sexual person:
"I do think it's important to take ownership of those type of things. I'm intoxicated and turned on by people who are really honest about themselves. And so the coming-out process, given that, is a great move. Because people know that you're sexual and that's who you like, and you're not guarded and sketchy and awkward."

On sex:
"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."