“Pluto connected with Venus is an important factor in love life and married life. Already in the Kosmobiologisches Jahrbuch 1965 I have drawn attention to the fact that the two “society ladies” Nitribitt of Frankfurt and Keeler of London, in fact had a close conjunction and opposition of Venus and Pluto respectively. In their cases, an excessively accentuated sex life was combined with immoral conduct.”
So says the late, great Ebertin in his seminal treatise on “The Influence of Pluto on Human Love Life”, published in English in 1970: he goes on to intimate something of the profound difficulty with the contact:
“However it must definitely not be thought that Pluto – Venus combinations are always indicative of negative qualities, and that so a warning should be given to be careful about entering into marriage with such a person… Venus and Pluto do not necessarily lead to debauched and licentious ways. They can also endow with charm and popularity.”
Of course, these observations are tinged with the zeitgeist of a different astrological outlook, one that reflects the received wisdom of its time and indeed the subjectivity of its author, but regardless, there is no doubt that Venus – Pluto contacts, most especially in a female chart, are among the most problematic of all; at least they would be considered extremely difficult if the objective of life were to realise and enjoy a calm, secure and uneventfully committed marriage. That is not to say that the contact makes such an amorous Nirvana unattainable, only considerably less likely, but the irony of Venus – Pluto is that it very often thwarts its own deepest desire: to be loved, through its compulsive expression.
Ebertin’s understanding of Venus – Pluto was – whilst laudable for its time – doomed to be overtaken by the increasing sexual sophistication of Western society and an ongoing liberalisation in particular of women’s self-expression and attitudes toward marriage and partnership. Astrology too has raised its expectations and inasmuch as we are no longer condemned by our astrology, we are equally permitted to reach for the very highest potentials of even the most difficult of Plutonic compulsions. The purpose of this life, after all, is to become our best selves: not to remain trapped in a gruelling cycle of blind, desperate self-undoing like unwitting automata enslaved by the soulless mechanisms of a rigid nativity. Venus – Pluto is no exception and shares in common with all Hadean contacts the potential for transformation: indeed, its requirement is to transformation, one that is ongoing and ever exalting, but which – by necessity of providing incentive – is in its untransformed state nothing short of ugly, base and as subjectively uncomfortable as it is objectively peculiar.
So first, to some broad ground rules. Venus – Pluto can manifest through the entire spectrum of aspectual contacts but as ever its urgency can be determined by gauging all the many factors that are the framework for understanding and insight. Consider the power and weighting of the planets themselves, the placements by house and sign, the aspect type and orb and so forth. Venus in Capricorn square Pluto in Libra will manifest very much differently from Venus in Cancer making the same aspect. To some extent Venus in Scorpio and/or the 8th will share some quality of this aspect and it cannot be denied that Pluto in Libra, most especially when found close to the Descendant and making other connections to personal planets will have some echo of this same quality.
So then, how does Venus – Pluto work in practice? We must first consider the key themes of the energies at play: Venus is concerned with being attractive; how we attract others and too how we make ourselves attractive to them. Venus defines something about beauty for us subjectively. It is most crucial in our manner of relating to the opposite sex and in a woman’s chart especially it describes something about the innate manner of appealing to men, while in a man’s chart it has more to do with the qualities that we find attractive in women. There is a subtle distinction therein of course: Venus in Virgo in a male chart and unmoderated or unrestrained by any other factor finds qualities of refinement, modesty and simplicity attractive in a woman’s manner; then too he will find a woman that is neat, who dresses simply and without ostentation and who above all appears natural and healthy, (no doubt with long, dark hair too!) most pleasing. He will not be impressed by short skirts, skimpy tops and layers of make-up. This of course describes exactly the manner in which the Venus in Virgo woman will seek to make herself appear attractive, but importantly, it does not describe the qualities that she will find attractive in a man any more than it describes the manner in which a man makes himself attractive to women (that is Mars’ domain).
Then of course we have Pluto. Much more difficult to understand, because there is no easy awareness of Plutonic tenets in the human consciousness. Pluto is hidden, forceful but in an insidious and indirect manner, deep – in the sense of being profound and for all of these reasons, he supercharges with invisible power. Most often this manifests as compulsion, which is only an imperative that is hidden from the self. While we cannot see Pluto at work in our lives we are doomed to do his bidding without having any awareness of his control except for a deep and nagging sense of discomfort and lack of ease when we are expressing the energy of the planet thus connected. This is however, a condition that is literally brimming with transformative potential since very often it is only required that one “sees” Pluto in oneself for the transmutation to begin. Seeing Pluto though, requires a glimpse of patterns of behaviour and self-expression that may be deeply unpleasant; even repugnant and it is no surprise therefore that we would very often prefer to not look at all. Pluto rules key biological drives, and as such it coarsens (where Neptune by contrast refines) and when all of these principles are combined we arrive at an expression of the Venusian principle that – untransformed – is crude (at least in terms of subtlety and sophistication), compulsive and control-focused. The symptoms of Venus-Pluto therefore are an obsession with appearance, in women especially this can manifest as the type of person who dresses in a noticeable manner, and usually one that makes a feature of her ‘best attributes’ in some way. Then too, in encounters with the opposite sex the Venus-Pluto person seems to embark on a continual charm offensive which can be quite overwhelming to the recipient. If you find yourself in contact with Venus – Pluto you may well feel as though you are “in the headlights” as the intensity and focus that characterise the interaction is really quite startling. There is often a magnetic, covertly (and occasionally overtly) sexual undercurrent in the exchange but even where the interaction occurs between members of the same sex this rather disconcerting energy seems to be brought to bear: the Venus – Pluto native wants you to find them attractive, wants to be appreciated, admired and loved, even in the most fleeting and innocuous of encounters.
Of course, the exchange is rarely comfortable for anyone. There is a fundamental sense of anxiety – as with any Plutonic contact – when the untransformed energies are brought to bear. People with Venus – Pluto contacts are actually involved in an inner struggle, the people upon whom they turn their charms find it flattering but usually disconcerting and observers will very often feel ‘shut-out’ of the interaction as well. With Venus-Pluto, three is most definitely a crowd. Inevitably this creates enormous difficulties for the spouses and partners of the Venus – Pluto native, but quite possibly, with time and realisation that these intense, charged encounters do not ever ‘tip-over’ into a physical impropriety they become inured to the insecurity and jealousy which characterises the early relationship. Venus – Pluto’s intimate relationships are often something of a battleground for this and other reasons.
To understand the other reasons we have to comprehend something of the motive force behind the contact. In almost every case it boils down to an enormous anxiety about being loved. The native feels that they are in some way unlovable and inevitably this stems from a peculiar set of circumstances in childhood where the parents used affection as a means of control. It really is just that simple. Of course, there are nuances and sub-plots, but fundamentally, this is the long and short of it. There is an unconscious connection between love and survival where a lack of love is perceived in the dark of the soul to be life-threatening. Usually the parents used praise, approbation and affection as a cynical medium of control over the child and indeed the child will have picked up on the ambiguity of these feelings from the earliest age. In my experience this ambiguity can go far back, very often to the stark realisation that the child was not ever wanted at all. This spills over into the dynamic between parent and child so that the child – feeling as though they were never wanted in the first place – is insecure and actually rather desperate for reassurance. The parent unconsciously senses this anxiety and exploits it by giving and withholding love, reassurance and affection to ensure that the child meets their expectations. The Venus – Pluto child therefore learns, and learns well, that love is all about power and control, and learns to be able to switch their own emotions and affections on and off as Mother or Father did so effectively. All of this black baggage is carried into adulthood, and there it remains, subtly poisoning all future relationships until the darkness is faced and transformed once and for all.
The pattern in later relationships is classic and easily identifiable. The partner of Venus – Pluto finds themselves on an ever-shifting surface that is characterised by anxiety and upheaval. Their partner is very demanding, sexually ambiguous yet sexually motivated, is able to disconnect emotionally, thus veering from evincing great warmth to extreme coldness seemingly at a moment’s notice and is apparently obsessed with being attractive to everyone and anyone else. If the relationship survives at all in the face of such pressure then invariably Venus – Pluto’s partner loses all respect for their mate. Women with this aspect (Cher, Madonna, Elizabeth Taylor, Glenn Close) will either form liaisons with men whom they do not love at all – thus allowing them to retain their self-respect – or with men who have no genuine interest in them except possibly as a conquest – wherein they become little more than sex-object which serves only to further undermine their confidence and self-respect. Through this process of humiliation and ever diminishing self-worth she becomes a contemptible non-entity to her partners. Men with the aspect (Woody Allen, Harrison Ford, Rock Hudson, Sean Connery) identify more with the power and control issues of the aspect: they switch emotions on and off at will in order to maintain control of the object of their affections and then begin to complain that their partners are unstable and psychologically damaged. What they fail to see is that it is almost certainly their fault that the woman in their life who wants to be loved and cared for is bewildered and confused by the emotional amputation they are subjected to and eventually it takes its toll on their mental health and wellbeing.
Of course, this is Venus – Pluto at its worst. If you have this aspect and you find that your relationships are a battleground, that you are arguing long into the night and every time you fight it is as though all is lost and yet somehow – against all the odds – the next day you have made up again; then the chances are it has more of a compulsive hold over you than you might imagine. Transformed however, Venus – Pluto creates a treasure of the love nature. If the childhood planted seed of insecurity and anxiety can cease being watered then the choking thicket of love, survival and control can die back to leave a limitless capacity to love in its stead. This undoubtedly takes courage and prodigious levels of honesty. What helps for Venus – Pluto victims is to stop trying to be liked, turn off the charm, dress down and demurely and to stop trying to control people and situations with appearances and affections.
Help with your own Pluto problems can be found here…
Hooray! You’re back!
Peripherally, I always thought that “plastic surgery” was a venus-pluto idea. Pluto in Libra but also Virgo with contact, especially.
cheers 🙂
Amazing for its depth, as usual. Thanks for this.
Do Venus and Pluto contacts work in the same way if one or both of the planets are retrograde in the chart?
And would you say something at some stage about Venus and Pluto contacts in synastry?
Thank you….
Hmmm, I’ve been wondering about the wasteland which is my love life and you just explained it – amazing! I have Venus in Sagittarius square Pluto in Virgo (and also square Jupiter in Pisces, yikes.) Thanks.
All I can say is Wow! Thank You. I am married to a man with this aspect of Venus Opposition Pluto and boy oh boy have I been searching for a clue as to what has happened to me. Everyone who knew me before meeting him asked me what has happened to me. My mental health has suffered and I am transformed completely for the worst.
When you say “Men with the aspect (Woody Allen, Harrison Ford, Rock Hudson, Sean Connery) identify more with the power and control issues of the aspect: they switch emotions on and off at will in order to maintain control of the object of their affections and then begin to complain that their partners are unstable and psychologically damaged. What they fail to see is that it is almost certainly their fault that the woman in their life who wants to be loved and cared for is bewildered and confused by the emotional amputation they are subjected to and eventually it takes its toll on their mental health and wellbeing.”
You have no idea how dead on you are. I felt this so deeply, I began sobbing because by God’s grace after 11 years of this, I have finally realized this is not me. There is something about this man that has brought me so low, yet I couldn’t put my finger on it.
Please continue what you do. This is truly a gift to me. Thank You for sharing your insight.
I feel like I am gaining every piece to my puzzle to aid in my transformation and full recovery.
Thanks for this detailed description. I’m in love with a libra pluto square capricorn venus man and you’ve described him to a T. My pluto is conjunct his as well, so I have no idea how that affects the relationship. Am I delusional to think that pluto transiting his natal venus and squaring his natal pluto might provide a transformative push? (Probably…)
This is scary. I often feel like I hurt people because of how detached I can be! I take it to the extremes! Whenever I am in a new relationship, at some point in the early stages I emotionally block myself off or start to play these power games. I hate this about myself, but I almost can’t help myself.
The part where you spoke about my parents having something to do with this is true too. My mum was and still is very unpredictable, as a teenager, (not that many years back), I gained weight. Not a week went by that she didn’t let me know that I needed to lose the weight because “I was not as pretty when I was fat.” At other times, she can be very sweet, although seeing what I consider to be some of the darker aspects of her personality (withholding love, attempting to control emotionally etc) make me less trusting of her. This has manifested itself in many of my relationships, I don’t get fully involved, only half heartedly as a way of ‘protecting myself’ and maintaining control over my feelings that have obviously taken a hit or two. I’m only 18 but I feel so much older,I don’t like that one bit.
Sorry about this long message, but I really would like to know how I can get rid of these self destructive tendencies that hinder my relationships with others. I have a scorpio sun,venus and moon and a pisces ascendent.
Help would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you
” I don’t get fully involved, only half heartedly as a way of ‘protecting myself’ and maintaining control over my feelings that have obviously taken a hit or two.”.
I tend to take it a step further and get involved with people I don’t like so that I won’t be able to get attached no matter what, and then when I can’t tolerate them any further I explode on them, telling them how much I never liked them and they’re always furious, asking why I made such a effort if I never liked them in the first place, and I end up feeling like a monster, but also like a powerless loser.
Because deep down I want even the ones I don’t like to like me, and having failed to manipulate them in to this one sided type deal I feel completely unlovable.
This was an eye opener. I have this aspect and have wondered of my behaviour in relationships, that at times make no sense. Why if I know an issues is uncomfortable to my partner, I keep bringing ? I know there is no resolution to the issue, but I can’t let go. Great article. Thank you for publishing it.
This is truly fascinating. This is definitely how my relationships have played out. I have a pluto-venus-mars conjunction in the 12th house, squaring my moon. I do have a question: do you have any more information on how to go about ending this cycle? Is it really possible to end it?
hi there,
i have both venus in scorpio, and pluto in libra; both in the seventh house.
they not conjuct, but still share ‘the’ house of partnership, relationships.
is this still considered as an aspect?
this is very interesting, thanks for that. i just discovered your blog, and there is much perusing to do i see.
this bit describes my aspects to the T [venus in capricorn 7th squaring pluto in libra 4th conjunct dc!] —
“Venus in Capricorn square Pluto in Libra will manifest very much differently from Venus in Cancer making the same aspect. To some extent Venus in Scorpio and/or the 8th will share some quality of this aspect and it cannot be denied that Pluto in Libra, most especially when found close to the Descendant and making other connections to personal planets will have some echo of this same quality.”
but i can’t quite understand the wording — what is this ‘same quality’? the transformative quality? the intensity? i cant quite understand the sense. any suggestions?
thanks very much tho, i’ll be back!
hey,
Great article. Boy do I ever see myself!
I have venus conjunct pluto in leo,12th house; my husband has venus conjunct pluto in leo in his 7th. My sun is in leo and is conjunct venus, mars, & pluto. His sun is in libra. Unfortunately for us,things really aren’t working out….any thoughts are welcome… I also have the moon conjunct saturn in scorpio, which I believe has been the reason for my intense & emotional moodiness. Very challenging to say the least.
Ben, speaking purely as an amateur here: if they are not within 10 degrees of each other, then as you say, they aren’t conjunct and don’t make an aspect. (I think most people allow for a 10 degree orb for conjunctions.)
But if they’re both in your seventh, they’d both talk about the kind of people you attract. Is Libra your descendant? Then, its ruler Venus is in Scorpio. And Scorpio’s ruler is in Libra. This is what they call a “mutual reception.”
I am not at all confortable with most of the interpretations of hard pluto aspects. I am more prone to see a woman with this aspect as “demanding” of the partner a balance between individualism and dependence. When she senses that the partner is becoming dependent on the relation, she can be blunt and smash the partner’s ego. When she senses that he is becoming too individualistic, she shows how love can be a wonderful experience. At the end, what “she” (not really she, the transpersonal force represented by pluto) wants is love as seen to be the middleground between dependence (self-anihilation or lack of self-love) and individualism (too much self-condidence to the point that you exclude everyone else)…
just so that all may think about it.
Thank you! I have Venus and Pluto conjunct (0º orb) and both in Scorpio and i have felt NOT AT ALL identified with this article. All my partners have always said how i am the most emotionally stable person they know? I never dress overtly provocatively, nor do I enjoy talking to people who want to “talk me up” etc.
I do agree on your comment though, that’s a perfect fit for how i feel!
Deathgate, this is scarily accurate of my Venus-Pluto square… Thank you.
Deathgate, I agree with your interpretation of this aspect. At least it is bang on for me…
Awesome article, I will certainly be looking more into these Venus-Pluto contacts.
Perhaps this is the case for Pluto opposite or square Venus but I think the conjunction allows the native more of an understanding of Venus-Pluto energy, and the sextile and trine, more of an awareness and appreciation for the beauty of Venus-Pluto.
Also, I think your analysis of the men vs women with Venus Pluto is rather sexist. In my experience I have found that both women and men act in either way depending on their natal Venus Pluto aspects and the person(s) they are interacting/relating with.
I don’t necessarily agree with your childhood analysis either. I think Pluto is the utmost reality about humanity (and all species on this earth) that many humans want to or try to deny. The truth is we are all going to die (Pluto), experience some type of pain (Pluto), regenerate/reproduce/transform/grow (Pluto) and poop/excreate waste (also ruled by Pluto). All species on this earth do these things, it is inevitable and inescapable (like Pluto). This might not be Venus’ realm, Venus which tries to gloss over this reality with “refinement” or niceties (Libra) or un-changeableness (Taurus), but it is the truth.
What is more so true of everything in this universe is the hidden Pluto force that is in and between and within everything. Call it power, energy, sex/creation/reproduction or whatever. Plutonians know that the reality IS that everything boils down to this force, which is also power and which is also survival. Love/Sex is no different. What humans call love or sex are physiological drives towards transformation of the body and, on a more spiritual/eternal plane, the soul.
So while a less Plutonian/realistic person might not realize that love really is about this force, which always yields some type of power and control, Plutonians realize this. There’s nothing wrong with this. Love-power has been used to do some of the most wonderful things for humans individually, in groups, and on a whole. It has brought more peace and happiness to lovers and persecuted groups and nations alike. As with Pluto, it’s not about whether or not love is power. Pluto says and knows it is. There’s no argument, but Pluto won’t argue with you, it just makes itself known (there is no fighting Pluto). It is all about how this love-power is used.
I believe you focused alot on the negative expressions of Pluto-Venus and not on the overwhelming rich beauty this aspect creates.
Giselle, a transformed VP aspect absolutely allows for a very deep, intense and powerful love expression, and that really is a wonderful thing. Of course, I’m focusing on the difficult expression of the energy, because that’s what people struggle with (if the problem is fixed then it’s no longer a problem right?) If you have it fixed then good for you: that’s not easy!
I can also attest to about 50 cases of my own personal experience over the years where the description of the difficult effects of V-P as delineated here are felt to be perfectly precise, not by me, but by those people who have the aspect. It does work in exactly this way for men vs. women too, so I’m not sure my explanation is sexist. Do you have the aspect yourself? Some people are quite resistant to V-P, they don’t like to think of themselves as compulsive, quite naturally, and Pluto energy, when acknowledged is very uncomfortable, so often it is easier to pretend that we are fully in control of it when really we are not.
Anyhow, we don’t have to agree, I’m really very confident of my observations over the last 25 years on this issue, but I’m happy that you have another view which validates your own perspective.
I wish you all the best, Jeremy
I absolutely adore and love the depth and beauty in your explanation.
As someone with 3rd house Venus/Mar in Leo squaring my 6th house Pluto, I can really relate to what you wrote, I think because I too have thought long and hard about my Pluto aspects on a practical daily basis, and I have come to similar conclusions as yourself.
I have been getting quite comfortable with my Pluto aspects, having my Sun/Mercury/Venus/Mars/Saturn/Neptune/Asendant/Decendant all aspecting my Scorpio Pluto, with my 7th house (projected self) being in Scorpio too.
“Pluto says the opposite of depth is nothingness” being one of my favourite quotes.
People can be intimidated by me and I’ve come to the realisation that it’s only people who don’t own their power that feel this way. Since I have been owning my power, taking responsibility for my own emotional states and empowering my mind, I have noticed many people sense this power and either get obsessed or repulsed (or just intimidated haha).
But power is a beautiful thing, and true power comes from within. My last partner thought he was powerful because he would take power from others to feel in control, and I would feel in control by giving my power away for a sense of security and love. This was one of the most painfully beautiful lessons I have ever gone thru. I first thought my power was being taken from me and that I was powerless but then when I finally had conscious awarness that I was in fact giving my power away (it was a choice regardless that is was unconscious) I realised I was doing that because I was looking for love externally. If I didn’t get love externally thru others I felt starved, and this survival mode is what pushed me into owning my power and looking for love within myself.
This is true power and true beauty, and I hope to help others find their inner power and learn to love themselves as well as receiving love from others.
If one does not truly love themselves then they also do not have the true capacity to love others, as we must own these qualities first. Since love is our driving force, as love is basically what keeps us from killing ourselves because a life without love is totally meaningless, then I think that’s motivation enough to practice the art of self love.
The indian sage Ramakrishna (considered a incarnation of God) says that true devotion (love for God) only emerges when someone is able to overcome the craving for “kamini-kanchana” (love and gold), that really is maya’s power to control man and prevent him from being free.
I tend to picture the world as revolving (like in a stick) around sex and power (plutonian compulsion), but that sticks points to the neptunian values of spiritual values. Pluto forces us to evolve (or to succumb to chaos), Neptune shows the direction (or confuses us in a myriad of illusions).
Pluto represents the transpersonal self (yang energy) while Neptune represents the transpersonal soul (yin energy). To say that “love boils down to the force represented by pluto” is to deny the possibility of transcedence – that neptune represents.
We need to combine both the transpersonal yang and yin, isnt’t it?
While clinging to the world (maya), love boils down to sex and power. But if you wish to transcend the world, you must first renounce the craving for sex and power and watch true love being rediscovered within your heart. Some say this is the true nature of the “second birth”. And may utimately be the “mission” of the Pluto.
Only my 2cs.
Deathgate, what you said reminded me of a poem called “The Planets” by Linda Goodman:
We’ve fought a bitter war my twin self and I
Lost and lonely, fallen angels exilled
from misty, long-forgetten Oober Galaxy of stars
Caught in Neptune’s tangled web,
Wounded cruelly by the painful thrust of Mars
Totured by the clever lies of Mercury
Shocked and nearly torn asunder by Vulcan’s distant thunder,
Shattered by lightning of the sudden, awful violence of Uranus.
Crushed beneath the weight of stern unyielding Saturn.
who lengthened each hour into a day
each day into a year
each year into a millenniums of waiting.
Scorched by Sun’s exploding bursts of pride
as those wandering angels,
stilled and helpless deep within us cried
Still we fought on, in unrelenting fury striking blow for blow
driven by the pounding drums of Jupiter’s giant throbbing passions
Stumbling at the precipice of the moon’s enticing madness
to fall at last in trembling fear before the ominous threat of pluto’s tomb like slience
Consumed by inconsolable sadnessand the bleakness of despair
We bear the wounds and scars of our furious battle,
My twin self and I
But now we walk in quiet peace
with all our scattered pieces whole
together hand in hand
full serpent circle back into the pyramid shaped rainbow of tomorrow’s brighter Eden
Crowned by gentle Venus with the victory of love that did not die
but survived the night of our selfless seeking
to wait for the morning’s soft forgivenessand the dawn of understanding.
I have Pluto in Scorpio trine Venus in Pisces. So both are in “exalted” positions, if not techinically. Both form a sextile to Neptune (and widely to Jupiter). I also have Mars (trine Pisces Sun) and Saturn in Scorpio. Pluto is my final depositor. So no I am not resistant to, or unaware or unaccepting of Pluto or VP LOL. Even if I did want to (and believe me I dont, I LOVE PLUTO!), it seriously would be a futile attempt to try to be those ways, and pains me to even think of trying or what would happen to me if I did (I fear the rath of my inner Pluto…seriously)! It would be impossible natally and given the transits in my life. I have never even tried. Never have I been even the tad bit discerning or discriminating towards my love life outside of my VP needs (intense love and intense sex), though I have come to realize in the past year that some other type of discrimination COULD be helpful, perhaps. Not sure I can deem a Virgo analysis as more important than that Venus in Pisces love-logic, however (comprising on sex is out of the question…)
Like I said in my post, for me the reality (which i LIVE) IS just what I said, that this underlying Plutonian force is encompassing of ALL. I think it goes beyond Neptune, as Pluto often is in our solar system. Be it “under the surface” many it times, really matters not-except for the fact that this is frequently what makes it more powerful. I’ve always looked at love as beautiful, deep, intense, powerful, a merger with an esctatic dream high, a chance at my true soul union, tralalala and some (ok many) times with bits or tragedy or brooding but for me this is not a negative thing no matter how burned one gets. Even if love kills you-because one would have to admit that the experience transformed their soul, shaped it, if you will, for the next life/lives to come. And perhaps the experience is the reason, or one of the reasons, the person was incarnated in the first place (yeah, that Neptune in between my Venus-Pluto trine REALLY helps).
So personally don’t have a problem with it, maybe its the nature of my natal aspect. But I’d have to say I’ve only once been burned, well I guess this is coming from someone who has a totally different spectrum of what “being burned” is. Transformation, struggle, intense possessive controlling obsessive, perhaps dangerous lovers? Yes. All consuming lovers, loves, relationships, sure, many a times. Being burned to the ground until you are only ash and having to recreate your soul and your whole life back from dirt, only once. Well soul wise that is. I have Pluto in 2nd so I’ve seen a few financial highs and lows. As for my family well, going from filthy rich to nothing to back, wars, survival of death many times over, occult, secrecy, power…so no, no denial of Pluto here!! It is so not under the surface!!
I personally think the key to this configuration is VP ENERGY BALANCE. Within oneself and between one and the other (person, thing, place) one is relating to. The reason I was never burned before was because natally I was pretty much matched to every person/situation I encountered, be it extremely dangerous in some way (to my heart, body, mind). I never consciously put myself in an equal situation, it just always happened. In fact I have never gone out to find a guy and have gone on very few dates. Intense, soul mate love just happens fatefully, but it always did in a balanced way (maybe that is the difference with the trine?). But the one time when it wasn’t balanced, I became imbalanced and yeah soul death incurred soon after that.
P.S. I am not sure you are being sexist at this point either. Perhaps it is a cultural thing, an age thing or perhaps the type of women who would act like the VP men you have seen would not be the type to go to an astrologer (or anyone) for help.
Wow nray that poem is amazing.
I read somewhere that she wanted to remembered as a poet. I do like this one a lot.
Another one I like is “The Sting of the Scorpion.” Scorpio man to Taurus woman, in the Love Signs book:
your icy voice put out the stars
it cracked my heart, and broke it in splinters
your tone as cold as Colorado winters
but I promise to soon forget
the contract we almost made… you’ll feel
the quick response of an equal
as the dream begins to fade
I’ll drown you in pseudo kindness
and a casual, friendly glance
I can almost imagine your blindness
as I watch and wait
for the chance
to suddenly – cruelly – make you know
how easy it was to let you go
I dunno…haha…sounds like that Scorpio is doing some wishful thinking. Then again Scorps may be better at letting go than Taurus.
Jeremy when you refer to the parental dynamics and how the venus pluto soul carries their overriding energy into the future with them I’m interested to know if there are particular trends in the synastry of families that you’ve noticed?
What someone else read as sexism I read as cultural bias too – it’s ultimately down to semantics but there IS a difference between sexism and inculturation and I think the difficulty in spotting it is often due to the subjective nature of a persons experience of sexism.
The claim of sexism is frankly bogus in this context, we’re talking about Venus here after all. Do I even need to explain?
We relate to Venus specifically with a gender bias, it’s a design feature! I can’t believe that the word sexism even made it into this discussion; but it did make me laugh thankfully. I could make a discussion out of hard aspects between Mars and Pluto and that would technically be sexist too; sorry, but it is what it is, guys and gals process Venus – Pluto aspects differently because they relate to anima/animus according to gender. Jung 101.
One profoundly common fetaure, Urania, for Venus-Pluto women is that their transformative relationships often take place with Mars-Pluto men, (and vice versa.) Once again, there’s no real surprise there when you think about it, it’s a case of “irresistible force meets irresistible object of desire” 🙂
However, this does assume that there is only binary gender and sex existent in humanity…
O and I’m quite relieved NOT to have any pluto venus action it sounds intense.
Hey Jeremy,
I wasn’t implying I think YOU are inherently sexist. I don’t know you so I really wouldn’t even comment on that. Would be ridiculous. You seem like a really nice person. I just meant that your statement that I pasted below hasn’t in my experience rang true, EXCLUSIVELY, for me. So I don’t happen to agree with it, oh well, big deal :-).
I’ve met a lot of women that act the way the men do in your description and vice versa. IE, I’ve met plenty of women who: “switch emotions on and off at will in order to maintain control of the object of their affections and then begin to complain that their partners are unstable and psychologically damaged. What they fail to see is that it is almost certainly their fault that the..[man] in their life who wants to be loved and cared for is bewildered and confused by the emotional amputation they are subjected to and eventually it takes its toll on their mental health and wellbeing”.
What is surprising is that I have found that in my culture people would have no problem labeling this woman as just one of the MANY (as in a sort of norm) cold, evil or violent women in their country and this woman, perhaps, even accepting herself as such (in my culture Venus is looked upon as more aggressive, sexual, womanly, and females as naturally just as, or close to as, Mars-like as men). In another culture where the more passive woman is moreso the constructed gender illusion and culturally respected status, these very same type of women assume that since they are women they can’t be the ones at fault (a more passive aggressive, virginal Venus if you will). Because men are the ones who are suppose to be cold, aggressive and evil in that way, and women are emotional and more innocent and weak so if a guy is getting all emotional, something must be wrong with him not the woman. Obviously these men must be doing something to make their women switch their emotions on and off, etc.
I think this attitude leads these types of women to be less likely to go for help. How can they when there’s no acknowledging of a problem. It is always the men’s fault. The man (Mars) is always the aggressor, etc. etc. because that is what they are/were taught by their culture, parents, etc. Inside they might not actually even believe this but may do use this gender illusion to their benefit. Very Venus-Pluto.
Same is for your opposite scenarios. Now it might seem silly to someone who buys the gender illusion, that a man would think/be concerned that he is just a sex object but obviously guys form emotional/romantic attachments like all humans. I’ve seen a lotta guys go after a girl who really doesn’t even like them and continue to be with that girl while she rips their self-esteem to shreds.
I don’t actually think it is even much about “inculturation” as much as an illusion that sex=gender=action or differentiation of action/thought/emotion (when sex really just equals sex/reproductive system and everything else is a human creation from or experiences with such). Because I’ve seen the the same thing in this country, it’s just that there’s an illusion of gender that limits perception and awareness of a person’s core action from others and society who buy such an illusion, and the person his/herself.
As for anima/animus and Jung and gender. Gender is a cultural/upbringing/background/social construct. Jung was also party to a certain type of culture that formed his opinion/theories in my opinion. His theories aren’t proven entirely (none are) and doesn’t work everywhere in every situation(shocking to some maybe but humans are still growing in consciousness aren’t we?).
In such a gender constructed society perhaps this may be hard to convey, but I think sometimes it is easier, these days, in the West to imagine what a girl growing up with two lesbian parents view of “femininity and masculinity” anima/animus etc. would differ from someone else that just merely excepts the “traditional” ruling gender illusion/roles/rules of this country. Or how she would differ, if at all, if she did end up going AGAINST her upbringing/parental gender construct (if any) and accepted the gender illusion of her political-social environment instead. And what if that girl was lesbian or what if she wasn’t. Lots to think about.
I’ve personally witnessed that in a situation as I described above, the gender illusion becomes really clear that it is such (an illusion) and Venus and Mars start to boil down to the real personality of the human and not the other bs that comes along with society. Not necessarily because lesbians are SO different from heterosexual women but because many have had to mentally align themselves to their core because society doesn’t have a preset of rules they can easily follow.
One of the many problems I’ve come across with astrology in the states is that many people so rigidly attach their own/modern western society’s ideas of gender into the myths. Venus = women, but what does that REALLY mean? Venus the goddess herself has undergone so many different transformations from sexual prowess to submissive and passive dependent, and this is just an example of the very many ways a person who is female can act depending on the person.
It’s not to say that women as a group don’t have a few things that none of us will find in common with any man (ability to birth children, though some women are barren). But there’s this crazy idea that these few things (ie: a reproductive system) delegate ALL/most of a person’s actions/emotions/thoughts, an idea that is really very antique.
So sure, maybe it all doesn’t seem like sexism, but when I see comments like “gays and gals process Venus-Pluto aspect different because of….” kind of raises the whole gender-political issues that is apparent to anyone who keeps a constant awareness of gender politics and gender creation as a whole and in context to history and culture.
I don’t think they necessarily process VP any different. I think it depends on the person’s individual chart (nature) and their individual expression of that chart (something that nurture affects). Isn’t that what astrology is about?
Yeah, I have a Scorpio 3rd house.
Jeremy,
I grew up with a father who had a Sun/Venus/Saturn conjunct in Scorpio loosely trining his Pluto in Cancer. He was a family man, who unfortunately viewed his family as a threat to his primary relationship with my mother, whom he viewed as his exclusive property, body and soul. My mother and he had a very volatile, passionate relationship, which lasted for many years, even continuing after they (thankfully) divorced. Eventually, his heart fixated on another target, and my mother was left devastated, bewildered by the sudden coolness she’d never detected in his nature until then. To his credit, and maybe aided by his Saturn conjunction, their relationship did finally transform into a kind of friendship, and up until his death, he remained committed to her well-being.
nray,
The poem you shared, “The Sting of the Scorpion” describes the relationship between my parents, my dad the Scorpio and my mom the Taurus. My mom had her Venus in Gemini and was known for her quick wit and biting sarcasm. I remember even I cringed a couple of times at some of the comments she’d make (ouch).
This was the best examination of Venus Pluto contacts that I have ever found. After I read it I went back through my charts and personal experiences and found ample evidence. (I have Venus Square Pluto in natal chart but in the progressions have found it dissipated, no doubt as I have developed psychologically and become more aware of the compulsive drive).
I wanted to add that in the two instances, where I could point to my own behavior being the pursuer, instead of the pursued, both men had Mars Square Pluto in their natal charts and in progressed charts. I also noted that my behavior with those two individuals was markedly different from my behavior with men in general–and that I sensed strong energy that I later could identify as “pluto” energy but at the time only saw as “intense”, or “brooding”, or “powerful”.
I wonder whether the Venus Square Pluto aspect in a woman’s chart is activated or strengthened when she is dealing with a man with a Mars Square Pluto, but not necessarily the case when dealing with men who don’t have that energy/aspect.
After reading your article I went back and realized that my father had a Mars Square Pluto and was an alcoholic (emotionally unstable/intermittently emotionally unavailable). This is probably the marker.
All just thoughts.
This was spot on! Novice astrologer here, keep being brought to it by crisis. One of them is a guy with these contacts. I think if you are leo or leo rising you can become even more affected by this. As you are prone to admiration and charm. Boy did I very cautiously fall for this, although i do Have venus in pisces the 8th, who knows. I just casually hung out with him and became Really good friends. Then after a year he started talking about commitment, I said i wasnt ready and that i didnt want to be with him because i didnt want him to get the wrong idea. (Aquaruis slow lover truster here) little did i know how much he had become a part of me until he left. I have thought of suicide this hurts close to one pain. My mother, abandoned agian.
And he has told me of his mother not liking him not being married, He is gay as i am. His mother has this hold on him, he achieved so many stupid things he didnt want to do- for mom. Because the only way to get love is to. Do what she wants. Now he uses the same tactic on me, hes very superficial and wont understan being gemini. Maybe when hes 65. I never missed someone as much as my mother before, he used to be so concerned with me missing him, and i by default the feeling of missing my mom in foster care =not missing people. Now that i did, i feel alive and dead at the same time since he stopped being the same way with me when he failed to look deeply at my own upbringng, now i look at his makes so much sense. But thanks to astrology i feel continue living since in some way this has a reason.
Great work! I’m currently struggling with the issues you’re talking about here, times three (my first saturn return is due sometime this year, in my 12th).
And the comment about VP women and MP men is spot on! My mother has VP opp and my dad has MP opp. Talk about family karma, my sun-ven-mars 0 orb stellium is opposed Pluto in my first. But hey, I’m still alive.
Thank you for your wonderful insights!
Neptune’s child I would vote HELL YA!
I am a sun pluto and my ex was a venus pluto.
It was all of the above x 10. The thing is…I don’t think I can be with someone who doesn’t have significant pluto. It’s a double-edged sword.
Togi,
I went back and ran charts for my former relationships. Lo and Behold, EVERY man I’ve ever dated, going all the way back to my first boyfriend at 17, had a prominent pluto, or a packed scorpio or a pluto that squared my venus as well. So then I looked at the one man (who I married) who was significantly older than me, and figured his pluto wouldn’t square my venus. The marriage was horrid. I learned his pluto sits conujunct my moon exact. So finally, fast-forward to the one man with whom everything seems “serene” but there is a sort of tense undercurrent, though not unpleasant. He’s nearly 20 years older, and I think “Ah ha! I just have to avoid men my age!” and guess what, MY Pluto is contacting his Venus, although its a Quintile not a classical aspect. I’m not sure what this one will be like, but I hope he isn’t experiencing the drama that I felt in the other situations (My venus was being aspected in the other relationships). It seems that when you have this aspect, and mine is exact–the most exact in my chart, you attract or are attracted to people whose charts bring out the aspect even more.
WOW!
I found your site because I recently had my natal chart done. I was told venus and pluto were extremely close, coupled. On my chart they appear to be on top of one another. She told me “Please don’t take this the wrong way, but…You likely are unconventional and liberal in love and sex, and have many lovers.” Venus and Pluto are in my AC, which is Virgo. My moon is also very close, within 5 degrees. Mercury is also in Virgo. My sun sign is Leo. Mars is also in Leo.
I cannot believe how right on this article is. I am in my second marriage, but have had many intense and unhealthy relationships. I struggle with staying faithful. I’ve been told that when it comes to love and sex I act like a man, and not in a good way.
It’s sad, but so true. And, the part about parents using love. True. My mother wielded guilt like a sword. You are right on. Amazing. Now, I suppose I need to discover the path to recovery. You have given me much to think about.
I have the opposition with venus in the 10th and pluto in the 4th. Your description of the parents of venus-pluto natives hit the nail on the head for me. I find that as I get older my romantic relationships have improved but my relationship with my parents has not. They do not accept me as I am and still try to control and manipulate me. Actually, I have always felt utterly used by them. Starting at the age of 2 they dressed me up, pushed me on stages and runways, and took pictures of me constantly but with held support and love. I wonder how many famous people with venus-pluto were pushed into show biz by their parents? I noticed that Shirley Temple and Liz Taylor have the Square.
I do have a lot in common with erin of this aspect in the same houses… I wonder if our bod are close.. ?
Excellent article, and very insightful.
There is, in my opinion, a basic relationship between Venus and Pluto that is comparable to the myth of Hades and Persephone, which I am sure has been written about by others. Another that comes to mind is Inanna and Ereshkigal, again echoing the descent of the queen into the underworld.
In my experience of managing a Venus in Taurus – Pluto in Scorpio opposition, the way in which the energy can be viewed clearly is through a dominance-submission dynamic, either within oneself, or with another person who is conscious and able to be trusted. In this partnership of planets, the conscious exchange of power between them seems to relieve a lot of the pressure they bring to bear.
This is reflected in Inanna’s story, where she must give up her queenly vestments and kneels, naked, in front of her sister, who rules the underworld. Her giving up of her power leads her to being killed, but then her body is retrieved by one of her servants before she is reinstated in even greater glory, now knowing the value of service (having done it, and being rescued by a servant).
Very helpful article – thank you.
I think it is important to remember in this conversation that Venus also has to do with what we value financially as well as our possesions. Money and how we relate to it is indicated by the aspects made to Venus, and is probably more gender neutral than how we attract others. When Pluto aspects Venus it is very important to honor the truth Pluto brings, because otherwise, we are in for a lot of suffering.
Pluto demands integrity, and truthfulness, along with facing that which many, whether they have this aspect or not, are often uncomfortable with.
Venus on the other hand, being the lower octave of Neptune, so I’ve read, isn’t always the most interested in such things, and can be superficial.
I have Venus in Sagittarius in the 11th house, square Pluto in Virgo in the 8th house. With a Scorpio Sun I am conflicted by my attraction to Sagittarius energy, yet at the same time express that same energy when I am attracted to someone.
I don’t come on overtly when I am attracted to another, but I do obsess beyond what is healthy. I have been very compulsive in relationships that are not good for me, and have regreted it so much.
What you said about parents not wanting a child upon conception rings very true with me in that I was put up for adoption, and even though my adoptive parents have been extremely loving and accepting, I think the imprint of my earliest life has influenced me.
There is an article I read about the square between Pluto and Venus that makes so much sense where the author pointed out that it is best to look for what one truly needs in a relationship rather than trying to satisfy all the many wants one has.
I have venus opp pluto
When he mentions the venus-pluto aspect turning their charms toward a particular individual. The term diconcerning-does that mean we make people uncomfortable in a bad way?
I only mean that the intensity of Pluto, projected through the lens of Venus can sometimes be uncomfortable for others.
Thank you for this! Best article I’ve read so far on Venus-Pluto difficult aspects.
I have Venus in Taurus in the 1st and Pluto in Scorpio in the 7th and I can totally relate to relationship/power struggles which you have previously described!
I’ve got;
Pluto conjunct Anti-Vertex conjunct Ascendant in Libra
opposite
Sun conjunct Venus conjunct Vertex conjunct Descendant in Aries
and both of those combined aspects;
Square Midheaven in Cancer
thereby forming a Cardinal T-square in my chart.
Thank you Chirotic Journal – your analyses are detailed for the experts to toss over while also coherent to the amateur, your careful insights are grounded in personal experience that you share freely(requiring more courage than most people realize), and the language is enlivening and just makes, quite simply, a good read.
My family has a Venus-Pluto dynamic that Chirotic speaks to here.
My wife and I were born four days apart, both Libras. I did some free natal charting online…just an enthusiast here…I am Sun-Pluto conjunct (11th house, Scorpio rising), married to a Sun-Pluto conjunct (1st house, Libra rising), and our first child is a Sun-Venus-Pluto conjunct late in the 1st house, in Capricorn (Sag. rises).
There is a power struggle dynamic in all of our exchanges and it is constant.
Chirotic states: “The native feels that they are in some way unlovable and inevitably this stems from a peculiar set of circumstances in childhood where the parents used affection as a means of control. It really is just that simple….there is an unconscious connection between love and survival where a lack of love is perceived in the dark of the soul to be life-threatening. Usually the parents used praise, approbation and affection as a cynical medium of control over the child and indeed the child will have picked up on the ambiguity of these feelings from the earliest age…This spills over into the dynamic between parent and child so that the child – feeling as though they were never wanted in the first place – is insecure and actually rather desperate for reassurance. The parent unconsciously senses this anxiety and exploits it by giving and withholding love, reassurance and affection to ensure that the child meets their expectations. The Venus – Pluto child therefore learns, and learns well, that love is all about power and control…All of this black baggage is carried into adulthood, and there it remains, subtly poisoning all future relationships until the darkness is faced and transformed once and for all.”
I take this as a warning, and truly, as a young parent I am learning to never tire of collecting & assimilating warnings of any and all types (the first emergency room visit is the hardest lesson).
It is true that I save my tenderest affections for my infant child when he surpasses my own list of milestones that I want him to achieve – when he picks up food and eats it on his own, he rises to his feet by his own will, he speaks out for what he wants and communicates his desires, however simply an infant can. Not that I ignore him while he is just noodling around in his daily play – I don’t save my love only for when he exhibits the sun-pluto wolfishness – but I do, now, realize that I lay a little extra sensitivity on top each hug and kiss when I see (what I perceive as) sun-pluto manifest in his behavior. It would behoove me to reconsider why and when I dole out my best affections, to dive into his noodlings and find out what he will need from his father that his father might not recognize. Perhaps I am too self-critical (Virgo Moon somewhat afflicted?): I provide, I am constant and rigorous, I sing and play guitar for him, I feed him and I bathe him daily. But there is always room to improve, always something unnoticed to address.
I know that the child sees and feels aspects of my wife and I that reveal so much that is unconsciously assimilated into our personalities. The discoveries are staggering. My son has recently made a habit of grunting when he doesn’t get his way. I didn’t understand where he got this from, until I heard the sons of my brothers doing the same. I flashed back to my childhood and remembered “the grunt” as my father’s go-to word for showing frustration. Did he get it from my father? No, he got it from me – I didn’t realize I grunted so much until my wife started giggling from the other room every time she hears me do it. She giggles quite often. Am I so constantly frustrated, and why?
My son’s maternal grandmother, a Sun-Capricorn who has recently divorced and comes home to an empty nest, is a daily presence in his life and dotes over his every move with a tolerance that touches on masochism! At first, this grated subtly (but consciously) on my desire for absolute control and potential sowing seeds for a lack of discipline but, as I now realize, it is so important for balance and harmony for so many reasons. I am surely straining for too much discipline (Saturn in 1 Leo). Complicating this, my wife and I often lock in mature, passionate struggles – not ugly, but surely emotional. It’s a real tempest, sometimes. Thankfully, rather than be caught in marital tidal forces that my son obviously wouldn’t understand and my wife and I may unknowingly drown him in, he is plucked out to safety by his utterly devoted “Mamita” into a cottony sunbath of maternal affection. Sometimes I think they are escaping together, “alone together”. It’s a mutually-reassuring presence, without which I fear my little Venutian child would feel like the third wheel.
Wow, Ryan, you are quite the writer, as is Jeremy. I enjoyed your post and even more enjoyed the idea that there is a man out there that has the drive and determination to see in everyday occurrences how he might grow and evolve. Well done, you!!
I have pluto (scorpio) venus (scorpio) very close conjunction in 1st house….And I am happy with this aspect, so is my husband ;D (he was my first boyfriend!). We both are very intense. Sometimes I channel this Pluto-Venus “power” into my art, ’cause I’m an artist .
So true… What a blessing/curse mix was my ex marriage with my venus 8.52 and pluto 8.56 Virgo exactly opposing his 8.56 Pisces Venus (which exactly opposes his Pluto/Uranus conjuction in Virgo on my Venus/Pluto). So much passion, struggles, love/hate games, manipulations from both sides…. Happy it’s ended, so much strength needed, but was no easy end either 🙁 Good to know what to avoid anyway 🙂
Thank you for this article! I have Venus in Aries 10th opp. Pluto/Libra 4th, and have just recently started to figure this out. It was a relief to read something this accurate about the black hole of compulsion, struggle and frustration that has been a major part of my relationships. I was however wondering about the advice on dressing down and demurely, since I for myself feel that if I look nice and wear the right colours and so forth – it makes me feel more like myself and just generally gives me a good feeling. I have a Leo asc. though, which is also a lot about appearance I guess.. However i do very much understand how one should not use charm, affection or appearance to control things or people, just trying to figure how to know or feel the difference between looking nice/being charming/friendly in a good way from doing this in a not so good way..
This is incredible. You just described every serious relationship I’ve ever had. I am a female with Venus in Aries in the 6th House opposite Pluto in Libra in the 12th.
I grew up with two domineering, controlling, manipulative, self-righteous parents who could definitely turn the love on and off as it suited their purposes. And I’m realizing now in my mid 30s that it has influenced my life and relationships in a profound way.
Before, I had no idea why I acted out of control and sabotaged my relationships. Now I know, so now I have no excuse for not trying to better myself and change.
Jeremy this is a great article.. though it makes me sad to realize I have this aspect, it’s really helpful in making sense of myself..
What I don’t understand though, I lost it at some point in reading the comments, is what kind of aspect metween Mars and Pluto a man is better to have in order to deal with a woman with a hard Venus-Pluto opposition..
Again thanks for this article, it was very helpful 🙂
Hi
I have read all of the posts here and what amazing people there are in the world…this is a great list of additional pieces of “appilcated reality”…well done…
Going to add my bit…no one seems to of mentioned possible past life implications…before you groan and move on, so much has been done on past life astrology and therapy that it shouldn’t be discarded. From American psychologists doing hypnotic ( sometimes accidental ) regression, to major religions and belief systems around the world etc etc… the application of the possible difficulties being found from a past life affecting this one and coming from the subconscious mutterings of “our” minds is something worth pursuing? How you do that, if you choose to, is a personal thing i guess… how many times have you seen something in your chart that says something completely opposite to something else in your chart? Perhaps, this could be different lives saying different things…problems of different lives coming together in this one…lucky people…ha ha ha…this brings a new dimension to multi tasking…LOL.
Good luck people, maybe the world can be a good and great place if there are more people like you …. ?
I don’t know, I’m so confused with all this stuff…Let me explain my map a bit:
Sun in Scorpio 8th house
Asc in Pices
Venus in Scorpio(8th) conjuncts Pluto in scorpio(9th) too. Otherwise Pluto conjuncts Mars in Sagittarius(9th) while Mars joins Jupiter in Sagittarius too(9th). As a scorpio I’m of course intense and pasionate or hateful(so much that you can’t imagine) and for my luck all these planets have a good harmony and no bad aspects with none of them. But as you say here, this aspect between Pluto and Venus would make me a “traumatic unloved person”? LOL, pehaps i’m very like that, i like to put others on their extremities to see how much they love me and if they really have something inside of them that trully interest me. My relationships are normally tense cause i’m always worried about everything and i always feels like i’m not doing enough. It’s funny how Venus, Mars and Pluto are connected with the sexuallity, Their conjunction explain so why i’m bissexual? Anyway I can’t understand at all how to deal with the Pluto matters, you know, it works with our depths and we just can see it after done the changes. So, help me someone please, help me to know how this planetary orgy affects me?
You did not mention any differences between the different kinds of Venus-Pluto aspects there are, so I guess they can all turn sour at some point.
The funny thing is I have the trine, and I manifest mostly the negative aspects of Venus-Pluto, such as you’ve described them.
In my natal chart, I have Venus in Pisces, in the 6th house, conjunct DC, making a tight trine to Pluto in Scorpio(a 1 degree orb, the tightest aspect my Venus makes), a sextile to my Saturn-Neptune conjunction, a quintile to both Moon and Uranus, conjunction to Sun, opposition to AC and square to MC.
A lot of what you wrote is painfully true for me. I am 23(a woman) and have never had a relationship. While it is true that I love my freedom, and detest feeling confined and restricted in any way, it is also true that I have a very strong longing for an ideal, natural, and purely romantic love(not the kind based on sexual attraction and/or pragmatic, political reasons).
Basically the main reason why I have never tried to initiate contact or even encourage any kind of interaction with men is a very basic lack of self-esteem and self-worth.
Growing up, I definitely witnessed love being used solely for power, and felt totally rejected, as an individual.
My father, although not entirely bad, as a father, was a very intense, serious, severe and emotionally abusive individual.(Sun in Capricorn, Moon conjunct Venus, conjunct ascendant, all in Scorpio, and Mars in Libra square or conjunct Saturn, can’t remember)
Both he and my mother seemed to me to be very ambitious, and status-oriented, and put a huge amount of pressure on me through their expectations. Although neither of them acted like really strict parents(meaning imposing limits, and taking responsibility for the way they disciplined me). Instead, what they always did was try to use all kinds of emotional/psychocogical forms of blackmail to get me to do what they wanted. And, of course, as a smart Pisces, I picked up on this from a very young age, and deadly refused to conform and submit to their pressure.
Which, in turn, made them act more spiteful and critical, and downright emotionally abusive(both are Venus in Scorpio)
Also, very confusing to me was the fact that they were both intelligent, educated, with university degrees, yet so often acted totally based on emotions.
Growing up, I saw my father as the most hateful, selfish and unpolished creature I could ever imagine. He had an alcohol problem, and when he was drunk, he would get very aggressive, and loud, and would fight with my mother, and say horrible things to just about everybody around, including me.
There was always the fear he’d get physically violent, although he never did. He also seemed to almost brag about his affairs with other women, which always seemed as totally disrespectful and insensitive to me. I could never understand why my mother didn’t just kill him.
In fact, as a kid, I hated him so much, I often fantasized about him being dead, or leaving, or just plain out of the picture, so that I could be alone with my mom and older sister.
Also, from a very young age, I felt my mother cared more about him than she did about me. It was always his word first, his opinion first, his needs first. As I got a bit older, I realized it had nothing to do with really favoring him.
I might be wrong, but I always felt like my mom deluded herself into being married to “the love of her life”, when, in fact, she stayed with him mostly out of fear-of being alone, of living in poverty etc.
So I later realized she must always try to pay attention to his needs out of fear he’d leave, not out of affection.
Either way, I felt my mother was only with him because she was too self-deluded about him and their relationship(she’s a Libra with an Aqu Moon) to see that he was the biggest bastard alive. As well as too much of a coward to leave him, because she was raised during a time when a divorced woman was always looked-down upon, and then, there was the fact that he made 5 times as much as she did, and she was used to comfort.
I used to beg her to divorce him. In fact, like I told her later, the happiest 3 months of my entire childhood were when he was away with work, in Europe.
It was such a relief to come home from school and not fear that there will be yelling, cursing and broken dishes in the evening, or that I’ll witness any embarassing situations. I realized at that young age(I was 7 or 8) that I could never risk my peace of mind or my freedom for the sake of a relationship.
In fact, my hate towards men was so great that, for as long as I can remember, I have viewed relationships as embarassing for a woman. You’d think that social pressures to get a boyfriend would get to me by now, but they never did. But before I continue with this line of thought, let me tell you a few other vital pieces of information about my developing years.
First of all, from a pretty young age, I grew to be fat – not morbidly obese-but since this was back in the 90s when obesity was so rare, in every class I was in, from kindergarten till high school, I was either the only one or one in 2 kids, in a class of 30, who had an above-average weight, so I was always “the fat kid in the class”. This obviously made me feel like an outcast both at home, as well as at school.
I guess I over-ate emotionally, as well. But I do love food.
I am still struggling with weight(mostly, struggling with my own emotions, not the weight itself).
In fact, one f the worst times of my life was when I was 15, and had just managed to drop 40 lbs, and realized I was more unhappy, more depressed, and more insecure than ever. That was also when I realized that weight was not the real problem with my life. I gained everything back in the following 2 years, by going back to stuffing myself with sugar. Anyway, so much for that.
Secondly, I cannot remember exactly how old I was when this happened, but I do remember exactly the way it happened. I was definitely in primary school. If I am not mistaken, this is the main source of all my insecurity.
I remember sitting down with my mother, in the kitchen, talking, like we often did, about various subjects, some more or less philosophical- back then, I loved her, I was sure of that, and I was sure she loved me -, when somehow the subject of death came round. And then she told me..I had a sister who died at age 3, from cancer. She died 8 years before I was born.
I was shocked by the fact that my mother, whom I had trusted blindly up to that point, would keep such a secret from me, although in my young mind, I wasn’t even conscious of the real reason why it shook me.
But now I know that, on some level, I realized straight away that I would never really have their love, or acceptance.
That I was meant to be a replacement. As I got older, this became more apparent. It dawned on me that both my mother and father have one younger brother, and just one, and that my older sister was 13 years older than me-it was very obvious that I was never part of the family plan.
After that, I went from someone who had a family, an identity, meaning in life, to slowly becoming a shadow, over the years, I went from a funny, witty kid with an optimist attitude, to being a shy, quiet, withdrawn empty vessel.
I lost almost all my sense of self-worth over the years.
Don’t get me wrong, my parents did take care of me, materially, and I do think they tried, but the truth is, they hurt me so much that I just cannot open up to them anymore.
For the past years, ever since high school, they’ve told me my behavior is cold and bitter, my mom kept telling me I don’t love her, or that I seem to not care for anyone except myself.
And that is true. But I wasn’t always like this.
I was full of love as a child. In fact, people who knew me back then say they cannot recognize me at all, that it’s like I’ve been brain-washed, like the child I was disappeared completely.
I know I am dead inside, but I feel too tired to start the engine again..to have hope and feel things again.
After years of depression, of severe emotional pain, I just can’t love anymore. I am tired of putting my hopes up, to fall flat on my face, again.
Which brings me to the field of relationships..there are several reasons why I still don’t want a relationship. Mainly, it’s fearing getting hurt. I saw my mother suffering a lot because of my father, and I grew up feeling helpless because there was nothing I could do to protect her.
I basically expect bad behavior from men. I expect to be treated like crap, and not be respected, because that is the kind of behavior I have witnessed in my family.
I am aware of the fact that if I do end up in an abusive relationship, I might never recover from it, considering my already very delicate balance.(I have slowly gotten better in the past 2 years, after being a borderline manic-depressive, with suicidal thoughts and extreme emotional instability)
Then, there is the issue of equality. I’ve heard my father(and sadly, not just him) say things that made me see some men treat sex as a power game, as well. That women are to be despised because they enjoy being penetrated, submissive etc-although, it doesn’t occur to them that this is just the instinct part, and men are no better in that department than we are.
Plus, I hate games, I want to be treated like an equal, a partner, not like a nice accessory.
I have a tight Moon-Mars conjunction, which also makes me a feminist at heart. Always have been, always will be. I expect men to know I can outsmart them, and I expect to be appreciated to the full value of my intellect, and most guys do not like girls who are too unconventional, nonconforming, or just have strong personalities.
Ironically, I have gotten beautiful after high school. People who meet me now cannot believe I’ve never had a boyfriend, or that I’ve never even kissed a boy. Despite being about 40 lbs overweight, I still get called beautiful. Well, I get called beautiful, but I still feel ugly and repulsive.
I have Venus in Pisces square Pluto in Saggitarius with an orb of 1’31. I really loved this post, and I can identify with a lot of it, as far as the parental relations as well as relations with others goes. But, I have yet to see this aspect play out in a serious relationship– I’m only 14. I did/do face problems with self-image, though. I had developed an eating disorder, and I guess that would be fitting with the self image problem as well as obsessiveness in looks, etc…
Anyways, this is a great post.
Thank you so much for sharing your insights. I don’t know much about astrology, but according to my chart, I have a stellium in Virgo, which includes a conjunction of Venus and Pluto in the 4th house; my sun is in Leo.
So much of what you wrote was dead-on…how, more so in my younger years, there was the unconscious drive, not to dress to impress, but dress to ATTRACT; the continual charm offensive (perfect phrase); trying so hard to please and be liked, and the compulsiveness and discomfort associated with this plutonian energy…”[The] Pluto native wants you to find them attractive, wants to be appreciated, admired and loved, even in the most fleeting and innocuous of encounters. ” It is unflattering but true that I have this compulsive need to be found attractive, to be liked, to be appreciated and ultimately, to be loved, by everyone – from the doorman at my office, the waiter at dinner, my boss, to my boyfriend of seven years. My boyfriend had difficulties with this aspect in the beginning of our relationship, commenting on how friendly I was with men, alluding to his suspicion that perhaps it was/could be more than that. Now he teases that I’m just a flirt – not of the overtly sexual variety (though I must admit to a certain covert quality), but in an open, friendly and inviting way, and he is secure in knowing that, as you mentioned, it won’t “tip over into a physical impropriety”. By calling it out, you have made me aware of all these unconscious behaviors, the “in the headlights” reaction some people have in response to my intense focus and need to charm, and how it causes them to be uncomfortable, and upon further reflection, I would add, at times suspicious.
The part about the ongoing, exhausting arguments lasting into the wee hours, where everything seems hopelessly lost, but by some miracle is patched up the following day described the first 3 or so years of my current relationship. You completely NAILED it. When it came to relationships, I believed only a certain type of man could handle my tumultuousness…often I would shy away from men who seemed perfectly nice and interested in me because I had a vague feeling that just barely emerged into my conscious awareness that not every man would have the patience to deal with me or the willingness to dig deep into the muck that was underneath the surface. In the center of my chest, it felt like a bottomless pit in desperate need of love and at the same time this deep rage and anger at feeling so needy and dependent on another’s love. I was afraid that would unwittingly eat alive a regular Mr. Nice Guy. So on some level I knew I needed a man with a really strong sense of self to withstand that aspect of myself and I hoped that somehow, through his strength and love, I could learn to transform the desctructive energy.
You also nailed the nagging belief that I was unlovable, that I was never wanted by my parents, and that in my depths, love and survival were inextricably tied, and any PERCEIVED lack of love was on some level taken as a threat to my very existence…all this is so true for me. It is something I have known about and worked on for quite some time. I have struggled to reconcile my self-worth in light of my mother’s hostility, lack of verbal or physical affection and her neglect after my parents’ divorce, as well as my father’s passive absence.
I see now that the charm offensive serves as a protective mechanism, much like the, “You wouldn’t hit a guy with glasses, would you?” defense. If I charmed you and you came to love me, you wouldn’t hurt me. What I wonder now that I’ve read this article, is how my being molested from the time I was about 9 until I was almost 18 plays into the Venus-Pluto dynamic, or vice-versa. The longing and unquenchable need for love and the compulsive need to be attractive in the hopes of getting real love instead of objectification and abuse really went into high gear post-molestation and is something I have worked on in therapy and on my own.
I will say that there’s a happy ending. Through my current relationship, which, to make a long story short, was like going to hell and back, and through self-work (Imago Therapy, a spiritual practice, and lots of reflection and behavior changes) both my boyfriend and I have experienced a healing in our relationship and of our childhood wounds. I’m sure that we’re not completely cured as there is still and will always be more work to do, but many of the underground fears and compulsions that each of us had are not driving us as they had in the past.
Sorry this was such a long post, but I wanted to share with you as someone who has this particular configuration in their chart and its real-life effects. I look forward to reading more articles from you in the future. In the meantime, I will do my best to stop trying so hard to be liked and turn off the charm (or at least turn down the volume) because I do recognize that it was a way for me to control others through affection and appearance, in order to make myself feel safe via feeling loved or admired. Thank you again!
Wow what you said about the parents is so true for me. My mom always will say things to get me to do what she wants. Like you look so great with your hair up or something cuz she wants me to wear it up. That’s not a great example but stuff like that lol
Interesting, Fran, what you said about your mother remarks about your hair look. This is precisely the way I like my daughter’ hair. Although I am Venus/Pluto (Venus chart ruler), I don’t think that’s why I am commenting her looks, or? Of course I would say what I think is the best, as any other mum? My daughter Venus is one degree apart from mine, so my Pluto conjuncts her Venus, too. Her Venus trine her Pluto, so our relationship is pretty much intense for better or worse. Moreover, her father’s Venus is exactly opposing both our Venuses with Pluto opposing his Venus. It just was to hard to handle so I have decided to break this marriage at her nine to avoid suffering because her story may looks like Jeepster’s too much.
What about a relation beetween two people of the opposite sex, who have the same VP aspect
– in this case Opposition?
Me – Venus in Taurus 8th house opposing Pluto i Scorpio 2nd House.
Him – Venus in Taurus 10th house opposing Pluto in Scorpio in 4th house.
Our planets are conjunct also.
I’m crazy about him.
Everything is so true … I have venus conjunct pluto (very tight conjunction, both in 1 degree, and venus is my chart ruler) in 1st house (scorpio). The worst thing is I even like this aspect, very intense, though it’s hard not to manipulate others with such combo lol.
I’ve had only one relationship (8 years) but we separated because of life circumstances, so it wasn’t even our fault. Unfortunately usually men are “afraid” of me. One thing is sure, I’ve really transformed myself but it took time and A LOT of work. I feel stronger, no more childhood nightmares, but “alone”, even in a crowd.
Jeremy,
In your experience, does an inconjunct venus-pluto behave like a square or no?
Reading this
“The pattern in later relationships is classic and easily identifiable. The partner of Venus – Pluto finds themselves on an ever-shifting surface that is characterised by anxiety and upheaval. Their partner is very demanding, sexually ambiguous yet sexually motivated, is able to disconnect emotionally, thus veering from evincing great warmth to extreme coldness seemingly at a moment’s notice and is apparently obsessed with being attractive to everyone and anyone else”
was painful resonance.
Any Venus-Pluto aspect will have this resonance, even the trine, but remember that the trine is much more comfortable, subjectively. But after a few years even a trine will ‘square out’ and start to become a bit weird, making you feel a bit cut off and isolated. So an inconjunct which is much less comfortable will have this effect, but the feeling of a quincunx is generally one of frustration, as though you can’t quite make it ‘click’. It’s not as urgent as the square for that reason, but it will still resonate with these qualities.
Really a great description, I had a friend Venus – Scorpio who had actually same qualities, m a Venus with Virgo and despite of knowing bad qualities of scopio I always attracted to these people and I also attract scorpions as friends and lover these really tries to dominate. I also read about Lilith black moon which is I think also describing the same thing in men chart that what kind of women he will attracted but I unable to catch the difference between Lilith and Venus.
I have sun-Pluto and venus-Pluto, both are opposition 😁 everybody hates me, oh well, but do you even realize that people with this aspect having big love that you can never imagine, they are just so manipulative…
Have a great day peeps, cheers!
I have pluto opposite venus. I wish I’d known what it meant when I was younger…might have helped me accept the craziness! All or nothing,violent, possessive relationships; abortion; stalkers. Pluto is in my 4th and I won’t even go into that. Now Pluto is starting to transit my descendant and I’ve got involved with a plutonian man: pluto opposite sun. Secretive? Absolutely. Still it’s not an unpleasant experience and transformative…
Thanks for this!!
xx finja | http://www.effcaa.com
Absolutely adore these articles on pluto. wonderful site. Great job.
Thank heaven there is a progressed chart is what I say. Most interesting that the angle morphs – the natal square for me with a dignified Venus in Taurus passed the sextile in Gemini with partners stellium there a while ago. During that time I was in a tumultous marriage – very intense – very Persephone pulled into the underworld which I also see as very VP, and he with Venus Mercury conjunction in late Gemini and ASC conj Mars square from Virgo 9 degree orb. A very sexy and charming guy. Women love him and he has known many (affairs, marriages). Now I am out of that long marriage and Progressed Venus is on his Sun but I still obsess (Pluto) about him and his moving on to yet another woman (another caretaker). I relate to one thing here beyond compulsion to be pleasing and to please which I always attributed to the Moon Saturn conjunction opposing that Venus (out of sign with 7 degree orb), and that is the intense resistance and consequent frustration with a very controlling mother and this partner as well, and the set up for co-dependence from very childhood (H4 Moon Saturn) with conditional love. You must do to be loved, not, you are loved, and what you do is a separate conversation. Interesting post. I see the chart as a whole and I do not feel I fit this profile as a woman as a confusing seductress. With a Virgo AS I never dressed to be seductive but have a late degree Venus so perhaps grew out of that early on. I have had a great insecurity with feeling attractive. There is insecurity with PVenus. Again the conditional love thing. But one thing is sure. I never doubted my ability to love deeply.
It is super relevant to understand that planetary dignity is just that. A dignified planet is so much better able to resist the deteriorating influence of difficult aspects than one which is struggling. I see it as a form of stress. We all have a threshold for stress and can cope well until that point is crossed, then even a small additional worry can send us into flat spin. If a placement has dignity (by sign, reception, angularity, daily motion, house and positive aspect; all these lend dignity) then the threshold is raised. The key observation though with Venus-Pluto is the need to be approved of. There are levels here. At a basic level, and because it is a relationship planet, there is a sense of wanting to be pleasing to a man. But there are many avenues to this objective and the whole of your being interprets that imperative.