Venus in Scorpio

Venus in anyone’s chart represents how we attract things, situations, and people we desire. It represents our concept of femininity and what we find beautiful and lovely. Venus rules two signs, so there are two different sides to her. One of those signs is Libra, and the other is Taurus. When Venus is in a sign opposite Libra or Taurus (that would be Aries and Scorpio) in a chart, she’s said to be “in detriment” because she’s been put in a position to behave in ways that are completely opposite to her natural strengths and preferred methods of functioning. When this is the case in a person’s chart, it indicates that they’ve experienced deep wounding associated with Venus themes throughout their lives. It’s very beneficial for those with Venus in difficult positions in their charts (Aries, Virgo, and Scorpio) to understand these patterns because bringing validation, conscious awareness, and compassionate nurturing to these painful patterns can help to heal and free them to find ways to care for and empower their Venuses to function in ways that better support their well-being.

At her best, Venus in Scorpio is highly intuitive, devoted, compassionate, authentic, and can hold space for other people to transform and heal. She’s not afraid of darkness in the least and accepts ALL of those with whom she is close. She’s incredibly self-aware and perceptive, and she is capable of unimaginable depths of intimacy, connection, vulnerability, and grace. She’s capable of trusting those who show her they’re trustworthy, and she opens herself to them gradually as they earn that trust more and more through each instance of shared vulnerability. She attracts a partner who is capable of meeting her in this sacred space, and together they build a blissful union that satisfies her need for intense love, closeness, security, and merging. Sexually and romantically, she’s incredibly attuned to her partners and capable of a connection that’s sweet, real, deep, impactful, and even divine on a level most people couldn’t even imagine possible. The partners feel each other viscerally even when they’re apart. They’re part of each other.

However, Venus may need to endure a great deal of heartache, go through many struggles, and do a lot of work in order to be capable of finding and expressing herself in this manner.

To understand why Venus in Scorpio is so difficult, it’s necessary to consider how Venus behaves in Taurus. The Taurus side of Venus really enjoys the light, simple pleasures in life, is secure, knows that good things will just naturally come her way, and believes that she’s worthy of having whatever it is she wants and needs in order to feel comfortable and live in ways that align well with sensory and aesthetic preferences. She lives according to her own inner values, and other people can either like it or not. She’s self-possessed and clear about what she wants.

Venus can’t function the way that’s most natural for her in Scorpio because it’s exactly opposite of Taurus. It’s dark, intense, heavy, and complicated. Any placement in Scorpio indicates some pain and insecurity due to the nature of Scorpio, but when it’s a placement that has an especially hard time in Scorpio (Venus and the Moon), it represents deep wounds related to the themes of that placement. In the case of Venus, experiences throughout the person’s life (particularly early childhood) have caused Venus a great deal of grief and shown her that it’s not safe to show herself to others directly. She’s learned that she must adopt Scorpio’s secrecy and ability to “play the long game” and go after things in psychologically manipulative ways in order to get what she wants and needs. She can’t just show people her preferences, values, and desires, because not only will it not work to attract what she wants to her, but she may also actually be shunned or punished. Venus becomes guarded, distrustful, and extremely lonely. She may question her worth to others (or possibly even in life) since she wasn’t showered with things she finds lovely, and people didn’t just naturally like her exactly as she was. She’s still Venus, however. She still knows deep down what and who she wants. She still wants to be adored, wants to attract the good graces of others, wants to be charming, wants to be celebrated for her beauty and aesthetic tastes, wants to be loved and treasured, and doesn’t want to have to be the one to make things happen (whether directly like Mars or indirectly like Pluto). She may be uncertain whether she can ever have the things she wants, but she still has a real need for harmonious relationships (this is more related to the Libra side of Venus, but it’s relevant anywhere in the chart) and sensual pleasure in life. Combine this with Scorpio’s need for deep emotional attachments, intimacy, and energetic and psychological merging, and the result for people with this placement is a longing, a need, for deep connection and energetic merging that they may not believe they can ever have. Pain, angst, and a feeling of emptiness are the standard Venus in Scorpio experience instead of taking it easy, just appreciating moments of sensory enjoyment, expecting life experiences that align with her important values, and accepting the love of others the way Venus prefers to be able to do.

Additionally, Scorpio is more geared towards transformation instead of stability. This tendency towards transformation results in large part from expecting pain and problems, looking for issues, and focusing more on the difficult things in a situation than the niceties. This guardedness and eye for potential threats was necessary in early childhood and often well beyond because the environment and circumstances were painful and difficult. It remains necessary later in life even when circumstances are much more safe, pleasant, stable, and supportive because there are earlier wounds that need attention so the pain can be unburdened from the person’s psyche and nervous system. However, there can be a tendency to focus on the pain, darkness, and potential threats (both internal and external) TOO much, and that traps the person in patterns of re-experiencing the same types of wounds. In the worst case scenarios, someone with Venus in Scorpio may actually unconsciously repel the very things they wish to attract! For example, they may engage in “forced abandonment” which involves fearing abandonment and rejection so much that they end up behaving in ways that cause others, even very patient, loving, and compassionate others who genuinely care about them, to leave because the Venus in Scorpio individual pushed things so far due to insecurity that their loved one no longer really has any choice but to leave. Wherever that person’s line is, they cross it. Another very painful potential outcome of this placement is feeling miserable and lonely long term because the person has turned the expectation of pain into that reality in an ever-repeating cycle of longing and loneliness. (Remember, Scorpio placements are very good at making things happen in their outer world just by focusing intently on them!) Who has time to think about leisure or can have faith that things will turn out well when there’s a gnawing, gaping hole inside that nothing they’ve tried so far has ever been able to fill? (See more on the void here: https://youtu.be/iEQ6pqHzezw)

There are, of course, many potential benefits to this placement as well. The positive side of the tendency to look for problems and transform them is that there can be a lot of growth and healing as a result of this focus on the heavy things that arise, but once again, it’s just not the way Venus prefers to operate. Relationships with people with Venus in Scorpio can be very healing when Venus is mature and well-developed or very triggering when she’s not. However, even when she’s not, relationships for or with someone with this placement still hold the potential for positive transformation and growth through the pain and struggle of the experience.

Venus in Scorpio can be attracted to people who are in pain and in need of deep, transformative healing because she sees their need quite well, and she’s not afraid of the dark. She is well aware of their pain because she’s attuned to them enough to take it onto herself. However, this, too, can backfire really hard when the person isn’t ready to address their pain. They may not even be in a position to look at the pain she sees in them, and if she hasn’t incorporated enough Taurus to find her higher expression, she won’t know how to gently guide them through the process of creating safety, comfort, and stability in order to be in a position to look into the darkness and accept whatever’s there in compassionate, nurturing ways. Instead, they’ll reject her attempts at pointing out what she sees and blame her for their pain since she’s the one bringing it to the surface. This serves to reinforce messages she’s received throughout her life that she creates turmoil and causes destruction wherever she goes, and she may resign herself to this role feel she’s hopeless, helpless, and undeserving to find an intimate partner who truly meets her on the level of knowing and depth she is.

Venus in Scorpio is sexually alluring, but instead of attracting people in a straightforward way, it’s through the magnetism of Scorpio. Scorpio is mysterious and deep, and this draws people to it. If you ever doubt this, check out the number of views on articles or videos about Scorpio compared to articles/views from the same creator that are about other signs. As much as humans fear and want to withdraw from the pain, heaviness, depth, secrecy, longing, jealousy, possessiveness, taboos, morbidity, power plays, psychological manipulation, suspicion, obsessiveness, destructiveness, and incredible INTENSITY of Scorpio, they are also really turned on, intrigued, and inexplicably drawn closer to it. Being the object of a Scorpio placement’s laser-focus makes people feel special and desired, and many people find that on some level they really want to experience some of the intensity and the darker themes associated with Scorpio. Perhaps most importantly, everyone has stuff lurking in their unconscious that is looking for a way to surface so it can be healed, and however dangerous Scorpio may feel, that unconscious pull towards Scorpio placements and Plutonian people is quite compelling.

Additionally, Scorpio placements, especially Venus and Pluto, also hold the power to psychically will others to approach them and take action. If your Venus is in Scorpio, it’s very important for you to be consciously aware of your ability to do this because there’s potential for others to find it invasive (whether they’re consciously aware of it or not), and it can easily backfire even when it is effective if the other person does things because you willed them to do those things, not because they actually wanted to. I believe that most people who draw others to them in this way do so unconsciously, and unfortunately, it’s another way in which Venus in Scorpio can actually repel what she’s trying to attract. However, Venus holds the ability within her to consider other people’s perspectives, needs, and desires and find win-win solutions and compromises that are considerate of others and fair to everyone involved. Venus in tough positions like Scorpio and Aries can lose site of this because the pain of being in an environment that’s so neglectful of her needs and hostile to her true nature can cause her to become needy, guarded, self-centered, and even desperate for acceptance, affection, love, adoration, and belonging. Venus can reclaim these gifts, however, as she heals from the pain she’s experienced and develops and matures exactly where she is in a particular chart.

It’s important for Scorpio placements to experience plenty of physical affection and emotional intimacy (this especially applies to Venus and the Moon in Scorpio as both are soft, yin planets that need others and focus a great deal on attachment and comfort). The combination of physical pleasure and emotional intimacy is where Scorpio and Taurus meet. Because each sign in the zodiac needs to integrate some of its opposite sign in order to mature and develop, physical affection and sex can be very powerfully healing for Venus in Scorpio. Once she’s recovered from much of her trauma, she is then also in a position to be an amazingly effective sexual healer for others. Other forms of sensory pleasure and simple delights are really good for Scorpio placements just in general, too, of course, as they’re necessary for anchoring the nervous system in well-being. This makes it possible to work with whatever emerges from the dark depths of the psyche in beneficial and healing ways instead of getting swallowed up by pain and feelings of loneliness.

Scorpio placements have a tendency towards jealousy and possessiveness. Jealousy and possessiveness are not a good look for Venus, at least in most people’s eyes, and they certainly don’t feel good or natural for her, either! Venus needs security and comfort in order to function well, so it’s pretty important for this placement to address any sources of insecurity within her or within the situation. Sexual healing and healing through emotionally intimate romantic relationships are possible and important for people with this placement. A greater sense of security and belief in their worth can be developed and nurtured over time in a healthy relationship. Relationships with partners who aren’t trustworthy, honest, emotionally available, and loyal are especially damaging for Venus in Scorpio and just make it harder to be open to connecting with others with each bad experience. Unfortunately, this Venus can tend to mistake longing for love and therefore end up getting hung up on people who aren’t emotionally available or aren’t interested in a relationship with the Scorpio Venus person. Venus in Scorpio has a tendency to obsess about people instead of actively attracting them. She can sometimes hold onto interest in or feelings for people for a very long time, too, even after it’s become clear that they’re not going to be together. It’s also common for Venus in Scorpio to resent ex lovers and love interests and to hold a grudge for a very long time. Venus is generally not one to like to focus on such difficult emotions, so this, too, is highly unnatural and uncomfortable for her.

Another super important key feature is that Taurus is very, very good at being receptive, but Scorpio is very, very guarded. Venus in Scorpio can be quite secretive about feelings, values, interests, and desires. Not allowing others to see these things makes it much harder to get your needs met and to connect with people on any level (much less the level that Scorpio would like). It also makes it harder to warmly express appreciation, and that can make it less likely that others will wish to give Venus what she wants. Scorpio’s secrecy can also make it difficult to work through relationship issues in the graceful ways that Venus would generally prefer to use. Venus in Scorpio can use passive aggressiveness, withholding, and withdrawing instead, and this is extremely damaging to relationships! It’s very important to learn to be openly communicative with important others because there’s no such thing as intimacy without vulnerability, and this Venus placement needs deep emotional intimacy in order to feel loved and well.

The main challenges for Venus in Scorpio are to let love in and to allow things to just be simple and pleasant lovely and nice sometimes, to just let them be good and enjoy them! It’s hard to do this when you don’t feel safe and secure, however, and patterns developed during difficult times can become habitual. It’s very important for people with this Venus placement to be consciously aware of their tendency to overlook the lovely things in an experience because they’re getting lost in their inner worlds or obsessively analyzing the psychological factors in the situation. There’s a place for these things, but is it really necessary to focus on them so much of the time? Or to be so guarded in the present moment or situation? Self-awareness of the various ways they can sabotage their happiness in life, relationships, and potential relationships allows room for making different choices when it feels right to do so instead of just following the same unconscious patterns over and over again.

There are usually attachment wounds that need to be addressed, but fortunately, Scorpio placements are especially good at healing themselves over time. Using depth psychology to do inner healing work (I really love Internal Family Systems in particular, but there are many other ways to do inner healing work as well) can help to put them in a position to take the risk of connecting with others, but at a certain point, the only way to heal attachment wounds is through actually taking part in healthy, secure attachments to others. For this Venus placement, healing is all about doing the work to be ready for healthy intimacy and secure attachments and then actually engaging in them. Continue to do the work throughout the process, and relationships will continue to get deeper, more meaningful, and more fulfilling.

A mature, empowered Venus is one who owns her darker qualities, can hold space for the darkness in others, wisely supports transformation, has the capacity for very deep intimacy, and also consciously creates opportunities for light, simple pleasures and then purposely soaks up as much of the good feelings she can get from them in that moment. She does this while understanding that though the pleasure will soon end, it will come back around again soon enough, so there’s no need to fear the loss of it and try to grasp it. There’s no over-attachment to it. She learns to create and expect nice experiences that align with her deepest values and preferences, and she also expects darker and less pleasant experiences in life and knows how to navigate them in healthy ways when they occur without getting stuck there.

Note: I’d also add that evolved Plutonian people are generally especially attracted to and compatible with people with Venus in Scorpio because they appreciate exactly what she has to offer, are in a position to understand and offer compassion for her pain, can hold space for her heaviness, engage in her desired level of depth of intimacy, see incredible beauty in her darkness, and enjoy her highly sexual nature and high sex drive. She finds their darkness, depth, and intensity attractive as well. The challenge is that partners can get caught up in less healthy Plutonian themes together if they’re immature, stressed, or unhealthy. It can also be difficult for them to even come together in the first place if they’re both secretive and guarded about their interest in and feelings for each other. However, there’s potential for a great deal of healing, growth, enjoyment, and positive transformation together. If you have Venus in Scorpio, just know that despite the challenging nature of having this placement, it is exactly what some people desire! Your beauty and allure may not be “standard” Venusian beauty, but there are people out there who think it’s just about the most desirable thing that exists in this world. Show it off a little in ways that honor your deepest needs, values, and desires, and see who shows up! And, more importantly, do the inner work to be able to open yourself to them when they do.