There is a benefit to it, and the benefit would be having gay sex, and having really close relationships with other gay people. Obviously being gay isn't a purely negative things.

To make it clear, I never said that genes have no effect on a person, only that a person isn't born gay or straight. The genes may play a role, but the majority factor isn't genes, but your experiences in life.

Its kind of like saying genes are the cause of heart attacks. Yea, genes can play a factor but its not the cause. The cause is more things like poor diet and health. Which are under peoples control.

I should make one thing clear though. I am not talking just about conscious choices, but also subconscious choices, since your subconscious is still apart of you. So even if you do not make an active choice, people make subconscious choices all the time.

As for feeling pleasure from your palm, yea of course you can. Which is why some people masturbate so often. I am willing to say people masturbate because it feels good too, and not because there is a masturbating gene.

As for totally rewriting your brain, that is silly. Going from straight to gay is a fairly minor jump, all things considered. A person is physically capable of having pleasure from the same sex. People love and feel compassion for the same sex all the time. You know guys have guy best friends all the time. All the elements are there for a person to be gay. Which is why some times when memebers of the same sex work and stay close together for long periods of time, they some times become gay.