Essence Magazine

By Souleo. In his ESSENCE Magazine best-selling book, Hiding In Hip Hop: On the Down Low in the Entertainment Industry - from Music to Hollywood author, speaker and educator Terrance Dean addressed hip-hop’s last taboo: homosexuality. In the process he forced the masses to face the truth about the deep secrets of a prominent gay sub-culture within not only the entertainment community, but within the larger urban community.

For the once closeted author the aftermath of the book’s release and subsequent success led to a newfound sense of freedom and personal acceptance.

“It’s opened the possibilities for me to share parts of my life. I don’t have to be afraid and hide who I am any longer. It’s out there and I know that God loves me—I’ve learned that,” he said.

With such confidence, Terrance has taken to sharing his insights about relationships, sex and careers in his new weekly advice column on hellobeautiful.com, “Straight, from your Gay Best Friend.” The column is targeted to women as Terrance notes that many need a better understanding of the male perspective.

“Many women ask me about certain sexual requests from their men and if that means that he is gay. So I wanted to set the record straight because I feel there’s misinformation about sex and sexuality,” he said.

One of those main areas of misguidance he wants to address with women is their behavior in relationships.

“I think one of the most common things they let men get away with is not def ining the relationship. Many women stay with men who won’t label the relationship or they are in relationships with men over 5 or 10 years and it’s not going anywhere. I think the gay community makes some of those same mistakes. We all need to learn to let go and move on,” he said.

Since its debut last month the column has been a hit and Terrance knows it has much to do with the sense of trust between gay men and women as seen in shows like “Will & Grace,” and in the Dwight Eubanks character on “The Real Housewives of Atlanta.”

“For many women it’s hard to be friends with heterosexuals because while you have your head on his shoulder he may be wondering if you two are gonna hit it later on. So women know a gay man has no interest in them but is still able to speak on how a man thinks. So a gay man is truly a friend with no ulterior motive and it works vice versa too.”

While his weekly column comforts his readers Terrance is also hard at work on two new books including the fall release of, Straight, From Your Gay Best Friend - Who Else Is Going To Tell You The Truth About Work, Relationships, and Having a Fabulous Life! Before that fans can check out the anthology, Visible Lives: Three Stories in Tribute to E. Lynn Harris which also features novellas by James Earl Hardy and Stanley Bennet. The book is in honor of Terrance’s dear friend and mentor, New York Times best-selling author, the late E. Lynn Harris. 

Be sure to check out tomorrow’s part two with Terrance where he shares the juiciest advice he’s received about sex, relationships and work.

For more information on Terrance’s column please visit: http://hellobeautiful.com/author/terrancedean/