What Is the Bristle Reaction?
A partner’s touch can seem electric when a relationship is first starting.
“When a couple comes together, there is a honeymoon phase where everything feels great,” says Jeannelle Perkins-Muhammad, PhD, a psychotherapist and licensed family therapist based in Charleston, South Carolina. “The endorphins and dopamine are really pumping through the body and you can find no wrong with one another.”
But that effect typically wears off over time and physical touch becomes more infrequent or only tied to foreplay. Some may find themselves flinching in response to a partner’s touch if it’s always tied to sex, a phenomenon known as the bristle reaction.
What Is the Bristle Reaction?The bristle reaction is a physical, knee-jerk response. When one person in the relationship (the “bristlee”) touches the other, the partner on the receiving end (the “bristler”) may involuntarily flinch, become tense, or otherwise reject the person’s touch, explains Vanessa Marin, a licensed marriage and family therapist and psychotherapist based in Santa Barbara, California.
Typically, the bristle reaction develops when one partner assumes the end goal of any sort of intimate touch from their partner is sex, says Gigi Engle, a College of Sex and Relationships–registered therapist and resident sex expert for the dating app 3Fun in London. “Therefore, we bristle because we don’t want touch to lead to pressure to have sex,” says Engle, who is also a Gender, Sex, and Relationship Diversity (GSRD)–accredited sex and relationship psychotherapist.
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The presence of the bristle reaction could signal a communication breakdown. “Oftentimes the partner — it’s generally the female [in heterosexual couples] who is having this bristle response — is caught off guard and doesn’t feel as though they are heard or that their partner understands what foreplay really is for them,” Dr. Perkins-Muhammad says, based on her professional experience.
At the root of the problem, the intimate connection between partners is likely strained, Engle says. “This can happen for a variety of reasons including changing feelings, life circumstances, differences in sex drive, neglect of the intimate relationship itself, and much more,” she says.
Perkins-Muhammad has found in her practice that it’s most common in couples where one partner initiates sex more frequently, couples who have challenges with emotional trauma (past or present), or couples who struggle to communicate on a deep level.
It’s worth noting that the term “bristle reaction” isn’t an official clinical term. While it’s not something that’s yet been studied in scientific research, many relationship and sex therapists will be familiar with the term. Marin coined the term in the book she wrote with her husband Xander Marin called Sex Talks: The Five Conversations that will Transform Your Love Life.
“I was hearing about it from so many of my clients — and even experiencing it in my own relationship,” she says. “It’s so common for us to feel like we’re alone in whatever intimacy struggles we’re experiencing, so I wanted to create a term to help people recognize it’s normal and common.”
She also spoke about it in a TikTok video that’s garnered millions of views.
How the Bristle Reaction Can Affect Your RelationshipThe bristle reaction could hurt each partner individually and the relationship as a whole in a variety of ways. Some include:
It Can Lead to Less Physical Touch and IntimacyIf the bristle reaction leads to less physical touch, that can certainly hamper the overall relationship quality. “This [reaction] often leads couples to stop engaging in touch at all, which in turn builds resentment and contributes to relationship problems,” Engle says.
Humans innately crave human touch and, so long as it’s welcome, touch has been shown to soothe, enhance pleasure, offer comfort and feelings of safety, and increase levels of oxytocin, a neuropeptide that is involved in attachment and intimate bonding.[1] And know that nonsexual touch can play just as important a role as sexual touch when it comes to maintaining connection in relationships, Engle says.“When we engage in nonsexual touch, we add to our ‘piggy bank’ of goodwill and affection in the relationship,” she says. “Each action gives a little bit of currency to the account. We want to keep the account healthy and not let it run dry.”
Researchers have found that less frequent routine affection was associated with lower touch satisfaction, and that touch satisfaction and marital quality were positively associated with one another, according to one study that included data from 180 different-sex married couples.[2]It Can Contribute to Poor CommunicationThe bristler could feel resentment or frustration that the only time they’re touched is for foreplay, Perkins-Muhammad says. For example, the woman may think, “My husband only touches me when he wants sex.” They may sense a disconnect in their communication with their partner, where their partner doesn’t understand or consider their preferences.
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It Can Set You Up for Less Fulfilling SexThe bristle reaction in the absence of healthy communication could hurt sexual fulfillment. Oftentimes, the bristle reaction occurs when the couple is lacking true connection. “You associate every single touch to, ‘We have to be headed toward sex,’ rather than creating this space where there is true intimacy across the cognitive, emotional, and spiritual levels,” Perkins-Muhammad says.
Enhanced intimacy and communication about one’s preferences and desires can benefit the relationship. One meta-analysis that incorporated results from 48 studies found sexual communication was positively associated with sexual desire, arousal, and sexual function.[3]It May Create Distance in a Relationship“Flinching away from your partner’s touch can send a signal that you don’t want to be touched,” Engle says. As a result, the “bristlee” may feel rejected, hurt, or embarrassed — and the “bristlee” may pull away.
“They may begin to withdraw or feel they are undesired or that their partner is not interested in them,” Perkins-Muhammad says. Eventually, if the reasons behind the reaction are not addressed, it could even lead to infidelity because someone in the relationship ends up looking elsewhere seeking that feeling of being wanted and welcome, she says.
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3 Tips for What to Do if the Bristle Reaction Is Affecting Your RelationshipExperiencing the bristle reaction in your relationship doesn’t mean the relationship is doomed — it just means you have some things to work on together, Perkins-Muhammad says.
Here are three things to do if you find yourself dealing with the bristle reaction:
Explore the feeling at the root of the reaction. Getting to the bottom of why this reaction is occuring is key to reducing it in the future, Engle says. But wait until the moment has passed. “Having the communication outside of the moment so you’re not in a heightened level of anxiety is really important,” Perkins-Muhammad says. When the time is right, the bristler needs to connect to the feeling that they experienced and communicate that feeling to their partner.Discuss what each of you could do differently next time. “Both [partners] have to be really open to feeling, receiving, and being empathetic to the needs of one another,” Perkins-Muhammad says. Sometimes the bristle reaction stems from one partner not authentically expressing their sexual needs and desires and the other person feeling they’re asked to do things they aren’t prepared for, she says. So being open and upfront could alleviate the reaction so long as each partner respects the other’s boundaries.Incorporate more touch in your relationship where sex isn’t the end goal. “It really comes down to becoming more comfortable with certain kinds of touch in specific contexts,” Engle says. “I’d suggest couples have really open conversations about what kinds of nonsexual touch they enjoy and make a commitment to engage in it.” In Marin’s TikTok, she talks about how she and her husband set aside time to make out every night. You could also try taking sex off the table for a month or two to disassociate the relationship between touch always leading to sex. “This can reestablish intimate touch,” Engle says.