Venus at a right angle to Mars: desire and the need for gentleness pull in different directions.
Desire and tenderness look for each other: the person learns to make them live together.
An emotional and creative intensity that gives relief to everything they love.
Seeking tension to feel alive, alternating attraction and conflict in their relationships.
By Thomas Guilhot · updated
A couple who argue violently and then make up with the same ardor, a painter who destroys her canvases before starting again with more force, a friend drawn to people who make him suffer: the Venus-Mars square has this thwarted intensity.
The planet of attraction and the planet of desire meet at 90°. A Venus in Cancer with a Mars in Aries, among other examples, would set a need for protective tenderness against an impatient, conquering desire; Venus in Taurus against Mars in Leo would be a taste for comfort against a taste for dazzling conquest.
The person experiences attractions intensely. Desire and affection do not always go together: they may be drawn to what is not good for them, or feel tenderness for someone who does not attract them. Their relationships have relief, passion, sometimes storms. This tension also feeds a powerful creativity: the arts, dance, and music find in them a raw energy, a sense of contrast, and an ability to turn emotion into a work.
The downside is the search for tension. They may need conflict to feel passion, or provoke to get a reaction. Emotional frustrations quickly turn into anger, and anger into desire. Astrologers advise recognizing this pattern in order to get out of it: looking for relationships where intensity does not come through quarrels, and giving this energy a physical or artistic outlet. This square then becomes a source of vitality and magnetism.
Relationships are passionate but tumultuous: love at first sight, quarrels, ardent reconciliations.
They may confuse conflict with intensity, and get bored in a relationship that is too calm. They do well to learn to express their desire and needs without resorting to provocation. When Mars in one chart crosses the other’s Venus at 90°, this would give, according to tradition, a strong, electric attraction, which frank communication keeps from turning into confrontation.
This square gives a remarkable creative energy: performing arts, design, fashion, sports, professions of aesthetic competition.
The person works with passion and can produce striking works, born precisely from their contradictions. They may also fall out with those whose tastes differ from theirs, or take a critique of their work as a personal attack. Separating artistic disagreements from human relationships protects their team and their reputation.
Their days have emotional highs and lows: enthusiasm in the morning, irritation in the afternoon, a reconciliation in the evening.
They may spend on a whim after an argument, or send a message they regret ten minutes later. Intense physical activity, boxing, dancing, running, lets them discharge this energy. They then find it easier to recover gentleness in their relationships and patience in their projects.
In tradition, the hard aspects of Mars to Venus troubled love affairs: medieval authors saw excessive passions, lovers’ quarrels, and unhappy or scandalous liaisons.
These strongly moralizing readings reflect their era’s concerns about romantic conduct, and the site reports them without endorsing them. The Arab astrologers read by Lilly added that the better-placed planet prevailed: a dominant Mars made love combative, a dominant Venus made it languid.
Modern authors see a tension between desire and tenderness that is better accepted than fought. This square would describe an emotional and creative intensity, capable of the best when it stops seeking conflict in order to feel alive.
Tradition calls it dynamic: the two functions are said to pull against each other and call for an adjustment, without foretelling anything.
Personal planet. Lesser benefic.
The profile of VenusCounted between 83° and 97° apart.
The squarePersonal planet. Lesser malefic.
The profile of MarsIt sets desire against the need for tenderness: intense, sometimes contradictory attractions, passionate and stormy relationships, great creative energy. The person has magnetism and relief. The downside would be seeking conflict in order to feel passion. Recognizing this pattern frees all of its creative force.
Tradition sees a strong, electric attraction: the two planets, from one chart to the other, challenge each other as much as they attract. The relationship would be passionate, sometimes tumultuous. This contact calls for frank communication about each person’s needs so that the intensity does not turn into confrontation.
No. No aspect condemns anyone to anything. This square would describe an emotional intensity that can express itself in many ways: in creation, sport, passion for a profession, or in rich and lively relationships. Many lasting couples have this contact in their charts.