Intercrual stimulation was the more common way. Pederasty was seen as different from homosexual sex between adult males and more permissible. So, it was much more acceptable to screw a prepubescent boy than it was to screw around with another adult man. Current day "homosexual" identities are totally foreign from how practices existed in the classical world. If you have JSTOR access you can read this chapter on the topic in the context of ancient Greek militaries:
Ogden, Daniel, Catherine Gilliver, A.D. Lee, Stephen Mitchell, Ian Shaw, and Hans van Wees. “HOMOSEXUALITY AND WARFARE IN ANCIENT GREECE.” In
Battle in Antiquity, edited by Alan B. Lloyd, 107–68. Classical Press of Wales, 2009.
https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvvn9mv.6.
For a modern equivalent the most obvious parallel that most people would be aware of would be in the culture of Afghanistan. Mutilation is also definitely not new -- Alexander had an affair with a eunuch, for example. In Athens, homosexuality was relatively regulated, particularly to prevent people pimping out or raping non-slave boys.
This is perhaps why citing the ways of the Greeks is not really that convenient for the alphabet people in the current context: the Greek version was between an adult man and a prepubescent boy within various social strictures. It also happened in an environment of legal slavery, so what was permissible to do to slaves might not be permissible to do to free boys. There is also a tendency in historical discussions of these issues to focus on aristocrats living in the high life in urban environments rather than to look at the more restricted norms of the overwhelmingly agricultural society in which just reproducing involved lots of effort the heavy attrition of both wives and babies. Another thing that distinguishes Greek culture from Roman culture is that, although Romans get a bad rap as woman-haters, Roman political mythology is surprisingly heavy on heroic female archetypes like Lucretia and Virginia. The Greeks by comparison tended to find little of redeeming aesthetic or moral value in women, tending to see them as expensive chattel animals.
The other bit that tends to be missed by attempts to try to root contemporary florid rainbow sexuality in the ancients is that, overwhelmingly, classical philosophy tends to favor sexual restraint and skepticism towards pleasure-seeking and luxury. In current terms, they were "sex-negative" and profoundly macho, seeing any expression of effeminacy as something lethally shameful. While current practices emphasize egalitarianism, in the classical world they were supposed to reify social hierarchy, and anything that transgressed that was subject to severe social and legal consequences. The Abrahamic trio religions obviously take a much harder line on any gay stuff, and any attempt to muddle that goes sharply against both historic precedent and scripture.