In the pre-Christian West, it was much the same. I remember my delight as a school boy reading the Argonautica at the tale of Herakles's (Hercules's) lamenting the loss of the teen boy he kept as a traveling companion. The reason for his distress was obvious. My best friend and I laughed a storm making up speeches for Herakles - "Alas! Where has my butt-boy gone?!" It was funnier if you were 18, but you get the idea. Many of the great figures of antiquity were bisexual: Alexander the Great (who sometimes addressed his troops naked, so they could admire his beautiful body), Euripedes, and Sappho.