#dat smile

So in no particular order, my hypotheses/headcanons/observations:

by default only very slow/gentle touches below a certain energy threshold are allowed through - in theory if you could smuggle a feather into the throne room and had a light hand, you could tickle a Cleon of your choice right behind the ears (assuming you didn't get shot first for getting that close of course)

there's a smart detection mechanism that lets them e.g. shower without the water getting repelled, or use the hibernation netting on a jump ship (and allows spacers to put the monitors on too, presumably) but would presumably prevent them from being e.g. sprayed with liquid acid or put into a sensory shroud

once a contact has been allowed through (or maybe if the wearer makes contact first?), the aura in some way recognises the body that it belongs to and adds it to a kind of kinetic energy threshold whitelist (probably only for some fixed period of time) so the ol' Gossamer Court can do their thang

the auras are pre-set to permit free contact from a very small list of other people - Dawn, Dusk and Day can all touch each other freely for example (which explains the throne room slap-fight, amongst other things!) and Demerzel is of course always able to give them a hug or a neck breakage or, uh, whatever else, depending on the requirements of the moment

the aura can be "muted" (we know this from the S2 flashback) which I would guess is a step down from fully deactivating, maybe upping the energy threshold or something like that (to permit, for example, receiving a hickey but not a stab wound)

the aura can be bypassed if you know (or are told!) the "frequency" (or other scifi techobabble term of choice) which allows free use at least of energy particle style weapons (see the S2 assassination attempt, and frankly one of the moments in the series that always makes me laugh out loud)