Venus-Mars Contacts in Synastry: Attraction Between Two Charts

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Venus-Mars contacts are the synastry links most often associated with attraction. One person's Venus, read as affection, pleasure and what they find beautiful or valuable, forms a major aspect with the other person's Mars, read as drive, desire and the way they go after what they want. Astrologers look at these contacts for how wanting and being wanted may feel between two people. They are a description of possible chemistry, not a measure of it, and they say nothing about consent, commitment or whether two people should be together.

Educational guide: Astrologist.com does not currently calculate synastry, inter-chart aspects, house overlays or composite charts. The compatibility tool provides a sign-level estimate based on the Sun, Moon and Rising signs; known birth times are required for that tool. The contacts discussed here must be identified separately from the two charts' actual positions.

Whose Venus, whose Mars

The contact has two directions. Your Venus to their Mars is one link; their Venus to your Mars is another. In the first, your style of affection meets their way of pursuing; in the second, the roles swap. The labels are not about gender. Everyone has both planets, and either person can hold the Venus or the Mars side of a given contact.

Under the orbs used in these guides, a comparison of 20,000 pairs of charts with dates from 1950 to 2005 found at least one Venus-Mars contact in 55.7% of pairs, and contacts in both directions in 11.2%. A Venus-Mars link is common enough that its absence should not worry anyone and its presence should not be oversold.

Reading the five aspects

• Conjunction. Affection and desire merge. Astrologers often read this as immediate interest, with the Mars person energised by the Venus person and the Venus person feeling noticed. The same intensity can make it hard to slow down.
• Sextile. A friendly, easy spark that grows with shared activity. It tends to show when the two do things together rather than all at once.
• Square. Attraction mixed with friction. What one person enjoys may not match the pace or directness of the other's approach. This is often read as a lively, sometimes irritating dynamic that asks both people to say what they want.
• Trine. The two styles tend to fit without much adjustment: the way one person pursues suits the way the other likes to be approached. Easy contacts can still go unnoticed if nothing else in the comparison supports them.
• Opposition. Strong polarity. Each may find the other's style compelling precisely because it differs from their own, and the contact can swing between pull and push.

How either person behaves remains their own. A Venus-Mars square does not prove arguments, and a trine does not prove a lasting bond.

A worked example in both directions

Two example charts, calculated with the site's natal routines:

• Person A: 14 March 1988, 07:30, Amsterdam. Venus 8°41' Taurus, Mars 14°03' Capricorn.
• Person B: 2 August 1990, 21:10, London. Venus 16°31' Cancer, Mars 13°48' Taurus.

A's Venus to B's Mars. A's Venus at 8°41' Taurus is 38°41' of longitude; B's Mars at 13°48' Taurus is 43°48'. The gap is 5°07', a conjunction in the same sign.

B's Venus to A's Mars. B's Venus at 16°31' Cancer is 106°31'; A's Mars at 14°03' Capricorn is 284°03'. The gap is 177°32', an opposition 2°28' from exact, across the Cancer-Capricorn axis.

So this pair has a Venus-Mars contact running each way, one blending and one polarised. An astrologer would treat that as a theme worth discussing, then look at how Venus and Mars sit in each person's own chart before saying anything about how it might play out. The steps for any pair are in comparing two charts by degree.

Why the birth hour rarely changes the result

Unlike Moon contacts, Venus-Mars contacts are usually settled by the birth dates alone. Over 6,000 sampled birth dates from 1950 to 2005, Venus never moved more than 1.30° in a local calendar day and Mars never more than 0.79°. Those figures describe that sample, not a limit for every date. In the example, the whole of A's birth date moved A's Venus between 8°21' and 9°26' Taurus and A's Mars between 13°51' and 14°31' Capricorn, while B's birth date moved B's Venus between 15°27' and 16°40' Cancer and B's Mars between 13°15' and 13°52' Taurus. Neither contact comes close to the edge of its orb at any hour.

The rule of thumb that follows: a Venus-Mars contact well inside its orb rarely depends on the birth hours, while one within a degree or two of the orb's edge is worth checking against the actual ranges of both birth dates. Running the free chart at 00:00 and 23:59 of each date usually gives those ranges. Near a station, when Venus or Mars is turning retrograde or direct, the planet can reverse during the day, so the two end positions may not mark the whole range; there, check the positions through the whole day in an ephemeris. What the time does change is where these planets fall in each other's houses, which needs reliable times and places.

Retrograde Venus or Mars

A natal Venus or Mars marked retrograde (R) is measured exactly the same way; the angle between two longitudes does not depend on the direction of motion. Some astrologers read a retrograde partner planet as a more inward or delayed expression of the same theme. Around a station, Venus or Mars barely moves for days, so people born a week or two apart can share almost the same Venus or Mars degree. More on the natal side is in Venus retrograde in the natal chart.

Synastry contact or natal aspect?

Venus conjunct Mars and the other natal Venus-Mars pages describe the angle between Venus and Mars in one person's chart: how that person's own affection and desire work together. A synastry contact uses Venus from one chart and Mars from the other. The geometry is the same; the subject is the meeting of two people.

For each planet on its own, see Venus in relationships and Mars, desire and passion. Either planet can also meet the other person's Saturn, read separately in Venus-Saturn synastry and Mars-Saturn synastry.

The orb convention

The example uses 8° for the conjunction, square, trine and opposition, and 6° for the sextile, the same orbs the Astrologist.com calculator uses inside one natal chart. In these guides they are only a convention that keeps the educational examples consistent; the software does not compare two charts. Other astrologers use other orb sets between charts, and the counts above would shift with them.

Next steps

Get each person's Venus and Mars degrees from the free birth chart and measure both directions. The compatibility tool gives a separate, sign-level estimate from the Sun, Moon and Rising signs and does not include Venus or Mars contacts.

Related articles

• Synastry Basics
• Venus and Mars House Overlays
• Moon-Venus Contacts in Synastry
• Sun-Moon Contacts in Synastry
• Venus Compatibility
• Venus Square Mars
• Venus-Venus Synastry
• Mars-Mars Synastry
• All compatibility guides