Shedding Their Shirts--and a Stereotype : Entrepreneurship: Sexless computer nerds? A new line of greeting cards featuring Asian men takes on that image with bare-chested abandon.

Bare-chested in their Levi’s and clutching the American flag, these guys look as glamorous as Calvin Klein Obsession models yet as down-to-earth as Bruce Springsteen’s rock ‘n’ roll band.

You might have never guessed, but these heartthrobs are young Asian American actors.

And they have taken off their shirts to shed the stereotype that Asian men are sexless nerds.

Their platform? A new line of greeting cards featuring five hot-blooded Asian hunks.

“It’s something new and exciting,” said Ray Chang, one of the models. “It’s a chance to say here we are, this is us and we are sexual beings.”

Looking at these muscular bodies, it’s hard to believe that Asian men have traditionally been passed over for leading roles that call for in-your-eye masculinity, whether it’s on greeting cards, in movies or in the bedroom.

“It’s about time we see them in a more positive light,” said Tamlyn Tomita, the star of such Hollywood films as “The Joy Luck Club” and “Come See the Paradise.”

“Asian males have not been appreciated for what they are. They have always been dissed for what they are not. Sex is power. We are deserving of this power.”

Empowerment through positive exposure is exactly the intention of the cards’ creators--Jusak Yang Bernhard, an Asian American actor, and Paul G. Bens, a casting director. Ideally, they say, the images will kick open some closed minds in the entertainment industry so these men could land gigs as sex idols; one might even step up as the next Diet Coke man.

The cards are still available only through mail order. Since November, the cards have primarily been circulating within the entertainment industry; their creators hope to sell them in stores. The current series features five images of the men. Some shots show them only in their barest essentials.

A similar venture featuring sexy Asian American men on a calendar sprung out of San Francisco State University a few years ago. It sold very well but production was stopped after two editions. Associates said mastermind Antonio De Castro ran out of resources to continue the project.

San Francisco civil rights attorney Dale Minami posed for the first edition. He says that “it is important to create a different image,” because having one Bruce Lee per century is just not enough.

Lee “was masculine . . . but he was not a sexual person,” Minami said. “He was a fighter. In that sense he was not threatening.” Although Minami acknowledges that younger actors such as Russell Wong and Jason Scott Lee have entered the bedroom as romantic leads, he added: “The changes have been incremental. I don’t think it’s qualitative.”

That’s why Yang Bernhard and Bens want to showcase the talents and faces of all Asian actors--more than 2,000 of them are listed with the Screen Actors Guild. Together they have also composed the “Asian American Player’s Guide,” a free directory of Asian American men and woman actors that has been distributed to entertainment executives nationwide for three years. It was inspired by a controversy over the Broadway musical “Miss Saigon,” in which a white actor was cast in a Eurasian role, reportedly because of a lack of qualified Asian actors.

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For the cards, the partners chose lesser-known actors to “make the bold statement that ‘Hey, we’re just as sexy as a white person,’ ” Yang Bernhard said.

Actors say the myth that Asian men aren’t sexy is a devastating cultural stereotype that has not only influenced how show business portrays Asian men, but how Asian men feel about themselves, particularly the twenty- and thirtysomething generation of American-born Asians.

“I’m a S.A.M. (Single Asian Male),” playwright Garrett Omata wrote in a new play “S.A.M. I Am,” produced by L.A.’s East West Players in January. “The most undesirable species in the world.”

Omata said the line is a painful exaggeration of the Asian American male experience and how the myth of the emasculated Asian man has battered their self-esteem.

“In the media, Asian males are dichotomized so that they are either sexless computer nerds who are only interested in science and technology,” Omata said, “or else they are portrayed with savage sexual appetites that gangbang on wanton American woman.”

Actors’ unions report that Asian Americans make up less than 1% of all actors hired in TV and 3% hired in feature films. Asian Americans make up about 10% of the California population, 3% nationwide. Critics say the shortage of Asian heroes has not only translated to limited employment opportunities for Asian actors, but it has also restricted Asian men’s mating options. They say that while Asian women have played more sexualized roles opposite leading white men, Asian men have not had the same access to white women, on film or in real life.

“I’ve never felt white women are interested in me,” said Chris Tashima, one of the greeting card models who also says he is tired of playing extras in kung fu flicks. “Yet there are so many Asian women going with white men.”

“I’m Chinese,” said Gary Lim, another model. Lim went to Hong Kong to play romantic leads in two feature films. Yet he confesses, “I always thought I was not attractive. As I grew up I realized being sexy is not just how you look, but your personality and how you carry yourself.”

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The dearth of strong Asian male figures in popular culture is one of the reasons many younger Asian American women marry non-Asians, said Margaret Cho, star of the first Asian American sitcom, ABC’s “All-American Girl.”

“When you’re growing up at 12 or 13 years old, the images of what you are attracted to are burned into your mind,” Cho said. “Most of the teen idols are young (white) men. We don’t have Asian male teen idols.”

Cho said that even though on her show she is often shown rejecting the Asian men her mother fixes her up with, she is “looking forward to an Asian American boyfriend on the show.”

“Personally, I see Asian men as very strong, very sexy, and very much my physical ideal,” Cho said. “I love them. They frustrate me. They make me crazy. They are the image of who I am. They understand me the way other men don’t because we come from the same background.”

While most support the message the cards projects, some in the community wonder if the images don’t just validate an established aesthetic rather than assert a different ideal.

“The cards say if that’s the criteria of sexual attractiveness, then we too can be that way,” said actor Tzi Ma, who recently co-starred in “Golden Gate,” “Rapid Fire” and “NYPD Blue.” “But I think Asian Americans need to begin to look at ourselves not just in terms of, ‘Are we tall enough, strong enough or big enough?’ We don’t necessarily have to measure ourselves the same way.”

“I don’t think women find male pinups erotic,” said one Asian woman writer. “I think it’s a cute idea. But it’s a one-line joke. It’s a silly way to prove you’re sexual. Having a great body doesn’t mean you are a great lover.”

Prof. Stanley Sue at UCLA Department of Psychology said the inability to live up to mainstream beauty standards damages the pride of American-born Asians a lot more than it affects immigrants from Asia.

“Those who grew up (in the U.S.) as a member of the minority group say, ‘It hurts me deep inside, when am I ever going to be accepted as an American?’ Those who grew up (in Asia) . . . grew up feeling they are a valued person. They say, ‘It’s unfortunate that I am discriminated against, but it doesn’t eat away at my self-esteem.’ ”

Regardless of their upbringing, Asian actors say sexuality is an essential part of everyone’s humanity. Philippines-born actor Rob Sulit says he posed for the cards because he wants to show that the qualities of “being sexy, alluring, romantic and sensual are . . . not indigenous to any ethnicity.”

* To order the cards, contact ICMIM Productions, 11684 Ventura Blvd., Suite 424, Studio City, Calif. 91604; (213) 782-4092.