{{Short description|American gay activist (1959–2012)}} {{Multiple issues| {{Fanpov|date=October 2025}} {{Tone|date=October 2025}} }} [[File:Keith Griffith.jpg|thumb|Keith Griffith]]'''Darrell Keith Griffith''' (1959–September 18, 2012) was an American gay activist, pornographic film producer,<ref name="auto1">{{Cite book |author1=McGlotten |first=Shaka |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Jc3Or27Mzr0C |title=Generation Zombie: Essays on the Living Dead in Modern Culture |publisher=[[McFarland & Company]] |year=2011 |isbn=9780786486731 |editor-last=Boluk |editor-first=Stephanie |location=Jefferson, N.C. |page=186 |chapter=Dead and Live Life: Zombies, Queers and Online Sociality |editor-last2=Lenz |editor-first2=Wylie}}</ref> writer, and webmaster. He was known for "courageously steering the gay rights movement beyond the bounds of traditional political and legal response to threats to the community's civil rights,"<ref>Deborah B. Gould, ''Moving Politics: Emotion and ACT UP's Fight against AIDS'', University Of Chicago Press, Chicago 2009, p150.</ref> and for operating a seminal and popular website for sexual assignation, cruisingforsex.com.
== Early life == Keith Griffith was born into a strict, [[Southern Baptist]] family. He married his high-school sweetheart, but divorced a year later.<ref name="auto">{{Cite magazine |author=Wisniewski, Katherine |title=The Rise and Fall of Cruisingforsex.com, a Digital Atlas of Casual Encounters |magazine=[[Atlas Obscura]] |date=26 October 2015 |url=https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-rise-and-fall-of-cruisingforsexcom-a-digital-atlas-of-casual-sex |access-date=6 July 2022}}</ref>
== Activism ==
In 1986, in response to increasing discrimination against people with AIDS, Griffith co-founded the San Francisco AIDS group Citizens For Medical Justice.<ref name="wilcoxarchives.org">{{Cite web|url=https://wilcoxarchives.org/repositories/2/resources/39|title=Collection: Keith Griffith papers | ArchivesSpace Public Interface|website=wilcoxarchives.org}}</ref> Advocating greater militancy, and confrontation with the state, medical establishment and pharmaceutical industry,<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://archive.org/details/breakthrough-15-fall-1987|title=Breakthrough, Vol. 11, No. 2, Fall 1987|via=Internet Archive}}</ref> it became a [[lightning rod]] for activism.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hobson |first=Emily K. |title=Lavender and red: liberation and solidarity in the gay and lesbian left |date=2016 |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=978-0-520-96570-6 |location=Oakland, California |pages=153, 255–258 |oclc=948669919}}</ref> In a letter published by the ''[[San Francisco Sentinel]]'', he stated: "We can no longer afford to work through proper channels, if we ever could. Our very right to exist is under fire in ways most of us have not seen since the modern gay rights movement began."<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Gould |first=Deborah B. |title=Moving politics : emotion and ACT UP's fight against AIDS |publisher=University of Chicago Press |year=2009 |isbn=978-0-226-30531-8 |location=Chicago |pages=127–128, 150 |oclc=593222246}}</ref>
The group's first action was a sit-in at the office of California Governor [[George Deukmejian]], who had refused to sign a bill banning discrimination against people with AIDS. The protest resulted in arrests, but ''The San Francisco Sentinel'' named Griffith 'Man Of The Year', particularly as the protest had taken place, as it wrote: "despite the absence of support from the state's so-called gay leadership".<ref>Hobson, Emily K., ''Lavender And Red: liberation and solidarity in the gay and lesbian left'', University Of California Press, Oakland 2016, p 163.</ref> Although small, the group's radicalism inspired others, including [[ACT UP]], which was founded the following year.
Griffith also protested against attempts to discount, minimize, and deny the existence of gay people, including in attempts to mainstream their experience. In 1988 he was outraged when organizers behind a display of the AIDS Quilt avoided mention of their centrality to the event.<ref>Blasius, Mark; Phelan, Shane (eds.), ''We Are Everywhere: a historical sourcebook of gay and lesbian politics'', Routledge, New York 1997, p 654–655.</ref>
== Publishing==
In 1993, together with activist, pornstar, and trust fund beneficiary [[Scott O'Hara]], he founded the quarterly ''Steam'' magazine, which while focused on gay saunas, committed itself to celebrating “all kinds of sex, but especially public, publicly-disapproved, exciting sex.” In their association, O'Hara was an "all-in-one confidante, employer, and sometime lover...Both men approached sex as if it were their last meal."<ref name="auto"/> Griffith rejected and objected to "the accelerated mainstreaming of gay male life" and its homogenisation, believing that identity categories "limit the fluidity of sex".<ref name="auto1" /> He also viewed public sex "as the solution to centuries of sexual repression."<ref>{{Cite news |last=Gideonse |first=Ted |date=May 26, 1998 |title=All sex, all the time: Whether it's an addiction or a compulsion, some people can't stop having sex -- and they're finding the repercussions last far past the orgasm |pages=24–27 |work=The Advocate |issue=760 |id={{ProQuest|215773510}}}}</ref> Griffith's other partners were Jay Rindal and Oscar Macias.<ref name="wilcoxarchives.org"/>
== Cruising For Sex ==
Griffith established cruisingforsex.com in 1995, which listed [[Cruising for sex|public places where men could find sex partners]]. It led him to being called "the founder of the [online] hookup industry."<ref>Dan Cameron, 'Cruisemaster' Keith Griffith Passes Away', ''XBiz'', Sep 19, 2012, [https://www.xbiz.com/news/154191/cruisemaster-keith-griffith-passes-away]</ref> The site also tracked arrests and police activity, and inside information of planned sting operations, as well as 'horror stories' of those arrested.<ref>{{Cite magazine |title=Caught In The Web |magazine=[[The Advocate (LGBT magazine)|The Advocate]] |publisher=Liberation Publications |date=27 May 1997 |page=22}}</ref> According to one account, O'Hara had told Griffith: "'If you want safety, don’t have sex because sex is risky.' Safety was not the point; fully living was the point. O’Hara believed that life, gay life, should be more than mere biological survival."<ref name="auto"/> In 1997 the site was attracting 130,000 visits a day;<ref>{{Cite book |last=Espinoza |first=Alex |title=Cruising : an intimate history of a radical pastime |date=2019 |publisher=The Unnamed Press |isbn=978-1-944700-82-9 |edition= |location=Los Angeles, CA |oclc=1104791266}}</ref> by the following year this had exploded to 600,000 visits a day, making it, Keith claimed, the most popular gay website in the world.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Savage Love |work=[[SF Weekly]] |date=12 September 1998 |url=https://archives.sfweekly.com/sanfrancisco/savage-love/Content?oid=2135919 |access-date=6 July 2022}}</ref> It led to Griffith and the website being profiled by mainstream media,<ref>Brian Braiker, 'The Secret World of Online Cruising', Newsweek, Aug 30, 2007 [https://www.newsweek.com/secret-world-online-cruising-99043]</ref><ref>{{Cite magazine |title=Cruising for Sex Is Popular with Users, Cops |magazine=[[Wired (magazine)|Wired]] |date=15 October 1997|url=https://www.wired.com/1997/10/cruising-for-sex-is-popular-with-users-cops/ |access-date=15 January 2023}}</ref> particularly when police began using the site to arrest men in campaigns of entrapment.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Police defend rest-stop arrests of gays |work=[[United Press International|UPI]] |date=5 July 1999|url=https://www.upi.com/Archives/1999/07/05/Police-defend-rest-stop-arrests-of-gays/5571931147200/ |access-date=15 January 2023}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Is That A Badge In Your Pocket? Or Are You Just Happy To See Me? |work=[[OC Weekly]] |date=18 March 1999|url=https://www.ocweekly.com/is-that-a-badge-in-your-pocket-or-are-you-just-happy-to-see-me-6395533/ |access-date=15 January 2023}}</ref> Griffith believed the later decline of public gay sex venues was due to success of the gay and lesbian rights movement, and the assimilation of gay people.<ref name="auto1"/> By April 2025, the website announced it would go offline, with its administrator citing technological and legal challenges, as well as his other responsibilities, as reasons for its closure.<ref>https://cruisingforsex.com/</ref>
==Later life==
Griffith left San Francisco around 2000, relocating to New Orleans. Following [[Hurricane Katrina]] in 2005, he moved to Atlanta and then Augusta, Georgia to be closer to his family, and where he died of AIDS-related cancer.<ref name="wilcoxarchives.org"/>
== Legacy == Keith Griffith's papers reside in the John J. Wilcox Jr. LGBT Archives, at [[William Way LGBT Community Center]], Philadelphia.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://wilcoxarchives.org/agents/people/22 |title=Griffith, Darrell Keith, 1959-2012 {{!}} ArchivesSpace Public Interface |publisher=[[William Way LGBT Community Center]] |access-date=6 July 2022}}</ref>
== References == <!-- Inline citations added to your article will automatically display here. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:REFB for instructions on how to add citations. --> {{reflist}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Griffith, Keith}} [[Category:1959 births]] [[Category:2012 deaths]] [[Category:American activists]]