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Van Vahle leafing through his French rugby calendar.

While macho American athletes may occasionally bare their pumped-up pecs and bulging biceps for posters and calendars, leave it to the French to take boeuf-cake to a whole new level.

Several well-oiled specimens of male beauty from the French rugby team known as Le Stade Francais have lately been getting naked with each other for a sell-out charity calendar called "Gods of the Stadium." They're also starring in a DVD on the making of the calendar that's being discovered by gay men in America who are converting dollars into euros to get their hands on the hard-to-find foreign booty.

The calendar has been produced since 2001 and has been popular with women in France ever since. But the 2004 calendar -- which some say is more homoerotic than the previous version -- is gaining significant ground with gay men in America. The newest calendar, which like earlier editions is only available abroad or online from European Web sites like the French site of Amazon.com, has already sold out all 100,000 limited edition copies, although a quick search on eBay revealed one copy up for grabs with a starting bid of $28.72 plus a $25 shipping charge for delivery outside Australia.

Who can blame these eager customers? The video of the French rugby players includes Mirco and Mauro Bergamasco, brothers with bodies reminiscent of Michelangelo's David, dewy faces framed by pre-Raphaelite curls to match their rippled Grecian statue physiques, gazing intently into each others eyes, faces inches apart, completely naked except for a layer of glistening oil. One wonders how much one could charge to see Tiki and Ronde Barber pose in similar fashion.

Will Geisler, 36, a secretary at the New School for Social Research in New York, is familiar with the calendar and DVD of the French team. The Frenchmen, who are purported to be heterosexual, sling their arms casually around each other, touch, roughhouse, pout and make kissy faces at their teammates -- all while naked and pressing up against each other without the least bit of self-consciousness. From Geisler's point of view, it's a gay man's fantasy come to life.

"That's part of the appeal," Geisler says. "That they're supposed to be straight and they're so comfortable being naked and doing things with each other."

Rugby has a reputation for being the most macho of the macho sports, often compared to football without all the wimpy padding. That's why the idea of watching Regis Sigoire from the championship winning rugby team and Jeremie

Ballais, a professional wrestler, drape their arms around each other's wet torsos in the locker room whirlpool -- while strategically placed bubbles slide away, threatening to undo any attempts at discretion -- may seem shocking to some Americans. But it's exactly this forbidden aspect that makes it so appealing to those who manage to get their hands on the hard-to-get calendar and the accompanying video. Just imagine the reaction if American athletes like Derek Jeter and A-Rod even considered romping around and hugging each other in the team bathtub while letting it all hang out.

Despite the extra hassle of having to convert dollars to foreign currency or the fact that the DVD can only be played on computers after settings are adjusted to accommodate European DVDs, the charity calendar seems to be capitalizing on its appeal to gay men. The risque 2004 edition has thrown in a sprinkling of

professional athletes from other sports and even just the plain hunky for hunky's sake like Mr. France 2003, Fredric Deltour. This strategy may be paying off, as more men in the United States appeal to their French friends to get their hands on a copy.

Van Vahle, 32, director of e-commerce at Estee Lauder, says he first started receiving e-mailed pictures of the French team from friends. When he found out the waxed, buff and beautiful men were professional athletes in France, he called a friend in Paris to look around for a copy of the calendar.

"I have a friend who lives in Paris," Vahle said. "I inquired with her and she went to a bookstore in Paris and sent it to me for Christmas."

Vahle says he wouldn't be surprised if American women start looking for the French Rugby calendar next year since "the gays are the trendsetters," he says. Or as Samantha from "Sex in the City" said in one episode, "First come the gays, then the girls."

Unlike the average 12-page American calendar, the glossy black-and-white Le Stade calendar for 2004 boasts 30 pages. The 16.5-inch-by-12-inch pictures of the players posing alone or with each other have the months and dates faintly inscribed in negligible gold print in the lower left-hand corner, almost as an afterthought. Each month has two different page options so if you get tired of looking at three hunky men with their arms around each other in mid-August, you can flip to the picture of one hunky man in the shower, a torn wet white T-shirt clinging revealingly across his groin.

The calendar is definitely not PG-13. Vahle keeps his copy hung inside his wardrobe door.

"I came out of the closet, but the calendar hasn't," he says.

With the World Cup of rugby being televised on Fox Sports News last October and the ability to find more games televised during reasonable hours, rugby is growing in popularity, says Geisler -- especially among the gay communities

where gay rugby teams are springing up, from Boston to Los Angeles and Houston to Atlanta.

But Geisler, who plays in a rugby league in New York, admits his interest in the French team's athleticism is secondary to their aesthetic appeal. Asked if Le Stade ranks well internationally, he sounded unsure.

"I think they're good," he said. "I'm not sure how they did in the World Cup. I'll have to look it up."

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