If Sam Smith wasn’t plus size and nonbinary, no one would be appalled that they were half-naked in a music video

Supported by a handful of backup dancers, Smith showcases some suggestively elastic dance moves — which Miley Cyrus, Nicki Minaj and Rihanna have all relied on for a while. Champagne is poured. Chandeliers are swung away.

The whole thing is epic, over-the-top, with the kind of high-octane glamor that has long been the bedrock of pop music. For her part, Smith looks like they are having a great time.

Knowing that Smith is an artist who is open about his long and arduous journey in moving away from self-loathing and toward physical acceptance, the video is a joy to watch. “I now have the opposite of body dysmorphia,” Smith said recently.

And yet, it’s almost as if Madonna, who did all this three decades earlier, never existed. Critics have noted that Smith, while unapologetic about his sexiness, is “normalizing” pornography in popular music.

One reviewer took to Twitter for a good old fashioned beaded bag: “YouTube has no age restrictions on Sam Smith’s demeaning sexualized new music video,” they posted.

“Five year olds can look this up and watch without content restrictions! Sam Smith, this is not art. That’s not trendy. That doesn’t empower. That’s outrageous!” And another: “It’s the music industry, none playboy cover shoot.”

The only logical answer to all of this is a big head scratch. I never buy the “won’t anyone think of the kids” defense because it mostly gives people a great opportunity to have a good old-fashioned conservative complaint about something that offends them. The children rarely, if ever, come into play.

And as I mentioned, female artists have been creating the same content for years: think Miley Cyrus taking a nude shower in the video Floweror Meghan Thee Stallion dances in the video for Thoth shit. These videos not only pass the screening; One could argue that for these young female pop stars, sexy looks are a massive part of the overall package. It’s not just encouraged by these female stars; it is expected.

No, the backlash to Sam Smith rings in a whole different register. Smith identifies as genderqueer and non-binary, meaning they identify outside of the binary male/female identity. This can mean that non-binary people may feel like they don’t belong to any gender, or they may use their masculine and feminine sides at different times. “I’ve always had a bit of a war in my body and in my mind,” Smith said in 2019. “I think like a woman sometimes, in my head. Sometimes I’ve asked myself, ‘Do I want a sex change operation?’ It’s something I’m still thinking about, like, ‘Do I want that?’”

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While corsets, sexy swagger and bare skin are pop staples, Smith is breaking new ground as both a plus-size and non-binary artist without apologizing for their own sexuality and the space they occupy. Smith doesn’t ask permission to do what countless other artists have done before them.

And yet Harry Styles, who has self-identified as genderqueer, has donned similarly provocative outfits in a nod to gender experimentation in magazines on newsstands. Lizzo, another plus-size pop star, smacked the fatphobes, reminding them that their sense of body positivity is bulletproof and there’s no point in chasing after her for it at all.