Is Sam Smith too queer for the gays?
Sam Smith a tsunami of online foes vehemently opposed to the non-binary crooner’s latest aesthetic evolution. It was the top of the year and, of course, among those throwing verbal tomatoes at high-visibility queers to ring in 2023 were far-right zealots and their legions of online disciples.
By February, after a Kim-Petras-dueted performance of the TikTok juggernaut “Unholy”, they were screaming “groomer” at Smith while the singer strolled through central park.Sam Smith gets called “demonic, bastard and pedophile” in the streets of New York by an elderly woman, following their Grammy performance.
pic.twitter.com/L66BYBSgxZDisappointing, disheartening, and disingenuous (cause even conservatives used that “…at the body shop…” audio for reels), yes.
But shocking? No. The vitriol that a newly minted Pussy Cat Sam had solicited was on-brand for Bible-thumpers and maybe even exactly what savvy, “any press is good press”-minded record execs had hoped for.What was not quite as on brand was the comment section scuffle occurring among gay men regarding Smith’s body-ody-ody and the ways in which it didn’t line up with this moment’s “muscle-mary” veneration.A post shared by PERFECT (@theperfectmagazine)The gays had emerged from their pandemic-era-isolation gender explorations, feenin’ for a new brand of queer-sexy: the “femme-d brute” (as exemplified by IG’s never-ending parade of gym-honed, male-presenting physiques clad in JJ-malibu thong maillots, Ck sports bras, and Cher Horowitz-worthy schoolgirl mini-kilts) is THE moment, if not the thoroughly inclusive moment some would like it to be.
