Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a conventional, respectable person, as opposed to a criminal.

1910		‘Doss Chiderdoss’ ‘The Blokes Outside’ Sporting Times 6 Aug. 1/4: When I see the ‘crooks’ thought more of than the ‘straights,’ / I feel sorry for the blokes outside!
1975		E. Torres Carlito’s Way 108: I was busy fixing up my discotheque [...] like a joint from the speakeasy days [...] What with all the straights dressing up like Al Capone, I figured this was the ticket.
1986		C. Stroud Close Pursuit (1988) 41: The way the straights and the shits were mixed up over there, no sensible citizen would freely give a cop good information.
1996		(con. 1964-65) B. Thorpe Sex and Thugs and Rock ’n’ Roll 2: That June of ’63 King’s Cross was [...] brothels, hookers, pimps, hoons, charity molls, spruikers, toffs, chats, mooks, lairs, mugs, phizgigs, drag queens, straights, shines, bent cops, [...] tea leaves, neon, glitz.
1999		N. Cohn Yes We have No 145: A scattering of straights, seeking refuge.
1999		D. Looser ‘Boob Jargon’ in NZEJ 13 36: straight n. An innocent, naive person.
2000		Guardian Rev. 18 Mar. 3: How the boys in the back of the bus must have laughed at the straights.
2012		R. Brunet ‘Lucky for Me’ in ThugLit Dec. [ebook] ‘You’ve got straight written all over you’.

2. conventional heterosexual intercourse in the face to-face ‘missionary position’; thus in prostitute’s use, straight date n., one who desires conventional intercourse; straight girl n., a prostitute who only offers such a service; also pornography featuring this.

c.1930		‘Mme. Dora in “Strictly Business”’ [comic strip] in B. Adelman Tijuana Bibles (1997) 75: What do you want honey? Straight, French or any other?
1939		D. Maurer ‘Prostitutes and Criminal Argots’ in Lang. Und. (1981) 117/1: straight. Normal sexual intercourse; a straight date, a customer who wants normal intercourse; a straight girl, one who does not practice perversions.
1967		in S. Harris Hellhole 91: And she said, ‘Twenty bucks.’ And I said, ‘What do I get for that?’ And she said, ‘A straight or Frenchy if you want it.’.
1983		‘Heat Moon’ Blue Highways 191: I heard girls at the Big Four are getting twenty-five simoleons for a straight.
1997		(con. 1960s) A. Frewin London Blues 69: straight is a white couple doing it missionary style or side by side (but certainly not doggy style).

3. (orig. gay) a heterosexual person.

1964		Lavender Lex. n.p.: straight:– Any person other than a homosexual.
1967		in S. Harris Hellhole 222: Men in grey flannel suits who strive to look like straights but disclose themselves as what they are by [...] the flicking of a finger.
1978		A. Maupin Tales of the City (1984) 96: A couple of sherbet straights, doing a very showy Arthur Murray routine.
1988		(con. 1940s) C. Bram Hold Tight (1990) 96: Two randy straights who could say it all to each other.
1989		R.G. Barratt ‘Poofs on Parade’ in What Do You Reckon (1997) [ebook] [J]ust part of the double standards we poor, silly straights are forced to live under in this State.
1992		R.G. Barrett Davo’s Little Something 23: You straights give me the shits.
1993		Kennedy & Davies (con. 1940s-50s) Boots of Leather (2014) 7: The term ‘bull-dagger’ was used by hostile straights as an insult.
1999		Guardian G2 16 Dec. 4: I’m too poofy for the poofs and too scary for the straights.
2019		Guardian 23 Sept. 11/4: Mocking straights, ‘faggots’ and Lesbians, midgets, ‘fat girls’ [...] whichever minority she’s just dissed.
2021		T. Pluck Boy from County Hell 156: His cellie Raina had told him how obsessed with sex and genitals ‘straights’ were.
2024		J. Meades Empty Wigs (t/s) 640: We nances are turned on by the same gear as straights.

4. (also straight-head) used by members of the ‘counter-culture’ to describe a member of Establishment society.

1967		Newsweek 30 Oct. 85: For most straights, press reports of the East Village murders added a sinister new word to their glossary of hipisms.
1969		Gandalf’s Garden 6 n.d. 11: straights: basically people, groups, organisations, etc. who confine themselves to an extremely limited view of the world and conception of themselves, under the impression that they are broadminded, but who have a straight-jacketed mentality, causing them to deride or disbelieve anything which is not projected by establishment manipulated media [...] Conformist, ‘square’, unfree, restricted for fear of others’ opinions.
1974		G.F. Newman You Flash Bastard 64: A highly responsible member of a highly respected profession coming to try and corrupt the untouchable CID. He wondered fleetingly what the general public [...] who still had faith in the police, belief in the system, would make of it. What would they do without those straights? Without them it would all disintegrate.
1977		C. McFadden Serial 32: A superstraight with a button-down banker’s mind.
2005		B. Hare Urban Grimshaw 222: Most straight-heads don’t understand what the drug culture is all about.
2021		‘Aidan Truhen’ Seven Demons 271: Do not outrage the straights for another week Mr Telemark.

5. (US campus) one who stands outside the current social norms.

1996

Eble Sl. and Sociability 59: Three geometric terms – straight, square, and quad – are all derogatory epithets that designate with various connotations ‘a person who does not fit in with the prevailing college life style’.

6. (N.Z. prison) as ext. of sense 1 within prison environment, a prisoner who abides by the rules and has now previous criminal experiuence.

2001

D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 179/1: straight (also straighty) n. a well­ behaved, innocent inmate, esp. one who does not use drugs or alcohol, and has no previous criminal convictions.