Sam, dressed in a huge pink coat, is seen arriving by helicopter at a secluded castle at the beginning of the I'm Not Here to Make Friends music video.
After entering, the vocalist is surrounded by dancers and drag queens for a series of dances.
Some folks have taken exception to a particular moment where Sam is shown posing suggestively while wearing her corset and nipple tassel appearance.
The video, which was published amid much anticipation, quickly rose to the top of YouTube's trending ranking.
It didn't take long for Sam to start trending on Twitter as well, with several responses condemning the video as "vulgar" and inappropriate for younger audiences.
The video was disabled by YouTube's restricted mode, but supporters claim it's no worse than other suggestive imagery-containing videos published by artists, many of them female.
Songs like Call On Me by Eric Prydz, S&M by Rihanna, and Anaconda by Nicki Minaj all make use of suggestive imagery.
Drag queen Pixie Polite claims that nobody would have objected if a female artist had produced the same same video and wore the exact same attire.
"I believe the uproar simply reeks of this sort of homophobia, gay phobia, and transphobia," Pixie Polite said.
Pixie claims that there is also an aspect of fatphobia because Sam doesn't fit the mold of the ideal body stereotype.
Fans believe that since Sam came out as non-binary, the artist has embraced their gender and it has affected their music.
Because they didn't promote their queerness in the same manner, the mainstream public found Sam Smith's early work to be quite appealing, according to Pixie.
"I believe this to be Sam Smith's artistic coming-of-age moment", said Pixie.
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entertainment