So how does that work? I'm interested in male photography but I don't have a portfolio yet. Is it easy to find models on Model Mayhem?
In 2022, your best bet in procuring "wanabe male models" or "Instagram Models" would be to use—Instagram.
Even with a love/hate relationship with Instagram I have, I sometimes struck gold or feel like winning the Lottery, when I find a male model to model for me and local to me.
You being in LA should not be trouble for you in starting out your portfolio. My advice to you is...if you have "conventionally attractive" good friends, ask them to model for you in exchange for you treating them a meal of their choice.
If this is a fun hobby for you, I would simply recommend you create a new Instagram decided to this hobby. Don't be afraid to leave proper and professionally-sounding comments on the models' profiles.
I don't know if you know this, if the two of you are not following one another and you decide to DM, your DM will end up on a "spam folder" or Requests. You'll have to sometimes send a DM and leave a comment in their latest post, something like: Hello, I sent you a DM for collaboration ideas. Thank you and I look forward to hearing back from you."
When you do this, save/bookmark this post. Once the model accept the DM request, delete your comment.
Also...if the model reads your DM and decides to ignore your DM, you know this male model isn't interested and you'll remember not to bother him again in the future...make sense?