What Venus Actually Wants (It's Not What You Think)

She doesn't want to be a badass. She wants to be beheld.

Reading time: 11 minutes

Let me introduce you to someone you've forgotten.

Her name is Venus. You've probably seen her on Instagram, dressed up in "divine feminine" aesthetics. Moon phases and rose petals and soft lighting. You've maybe bought candles with her name on them or attended circles where women invoke her energy while drinking cacao.

But that's not her. That's the sanitized version. The version that's been stripped of her actual power because her actual power makes people uncomfortable.

The real Venus? She's the Roman goddess of love, beauty, and pleasure. The Greeks called her Aphrodite. She's the force that creates beauty, magnetizes love, and draws things toward her without having to chase. She rules attraction, harmony, sensuality, creativity, and worth itself.

She's not soft because she's weak. She's soft because softness is her domain. Her power doesn't look like conquest. It looks like magnetic pull. It looks like making someone catch their breath when they see you. It looks like creating such beauty that the world rearranges itself around you.

Venus doesn't pursue. She attracts.

And for decades, you've been telling her to shut up, put on armor, and act more like Mars.

What Venus Actually Rules

In astrology, Venus governs specific territories. Understanding them helps us understand what we've been starving.

Beauty. Creating it, appreciating it, embodying it. The desire to make things aesthetically pleasing. The deep satisfaction of being surrounded by loveliness. The radical act of being beautiful yourself and letting yourself be seen that way.

Harmony and connection. The pull toward relationship. The desire for peace rather than conflict. The instinct to create bridges instead of walls. The social grace that makes people feel at ease.

Pleasure and the senses. Good food. Soft fabrics. Beautiful music. Physical comfort. The ability to actually ENJOY things instead of just accomplishing them. The revolutionary act of receiving pleasure without guilt.

Love and attraction. The magnetism that draws others toward you. The art of being desired rather than doing all the desiring. Receptivity as a form of power.

Creativity and artistry. Making beautiful things. Expressing yourself through creation. The artistic impulse that serves no productive purpose except to bring more beauty into the world.

Value and worth. What we find valuable. What we're willing to invest in. And, crucially, our own sense of worth. How we value ourselves.

This isn't an exhaustive list. But notice something about all of these domains: They're receptive. Attractive. Soft. They operate through drawing IN rather than pushing OUT.

This is a specific kind of power. Magnetic power. The power that creates a gravity field so strong that what you want comes to you. The power that doesn't need to conquer because it simply attracts.

We've forgotten this is power at all.

The Distinction We Need to Make

Before we go further: This is not a conversation about what women can or cannot do.

Women can be strong. Women can fight. Women can lead armies and run companies and do anything they set their minds to. That's not in question.

This is a conversation about femininity as an energy. And femininity is not exclusive to women.

Every person, regardless of gender, carries both feminine and masculine energy. Your astrological chart contains Venus AND Mars. You have fire and air placements AND earth and water placements in some combination. The question isn't whether you HAVE feminine energy. You do. The question is what you're doing with it. Whether you're feeding it or starving it. Whether you've let it breathe or locked it in a closet.

When I say "Venus doesn't want to go to war," I'm not saying women shouldn't fight. I'm saying feminine energy isn't designed for combat. You can access your Mars when you need to fight. That's what he's there for. But if you've been running on Mars for thirty years and wondering why you're exhausted, the answer might be that Venus has been in exile.

This isn't about what women should be. It's about understanding what feminine energy IS so you can work with it consciously instead of accidentally starving it while trying to survive.

The Story of Aphrodite at War

There's a story from the Trojan War that I think about constantly.

Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty, sided with Troy. She had her reasons. (Paris, the Trojan prince, had awarded her the golden apple in a divine beauty contest, declaring her more beautiful than Hera and Athena. She returned the favor by giving him Helen, which started the whole war. Divine politics are messy.)

At one point during the battle, Aphrodite decided to enter the fray. She mounted a chariot and headed for the battlefield to protect her favorites.

She was immediately confronted by Athena, goddess of strategic warfare, who fought on the side of the Greeks.

Athena ran her off the field.

In some versions, Aphrodite is wounded. In all versions, she retreats. The battlefield is not her domain. She's not equipped for it. She's not designed for it. Her presence there is almost absurd, and the story makes that clear.

Now, here's what this story is NOT saying: It's not saying Aphrodite is lesser than Athena. It's not saying love is weaker than war. It's not saying feminine energy is inferior to masculine energy.

It's saying they have different domains.

Athena belongs on the battlefield. Aphrodite doesn't. When Aphrodite tries to do Athena's job, she gets hurt. She's ineffective. The attempt itself is a category error.

This is what we've been doing to ourselves for decades. We've suited up our inner Aphrodite in armor she was never meant to wear and sent her into battles she was never meant to fight. And then we wonder why we're exhausted. Why success feels hollow. Why we've achieved everything and feel nothing.

Venus got wounded. Just like in the myth.

How We've Been Starving Her

Let me be specific about what Venus starvation looks like. Because it's not abstract. It's the texture of your daily life.

You've made beauty suspect. Caring about your appearance feels frivolous or anti-feminist. You've learned to downplay your desire to be beautiful, to be seen as beautiful, because it seems shallow or politically problematic. So you perform indifference to beauty while secretly longing to feel gorgeous.

You've suppressed the desire to be beheld. You're uncomfortable with compliments. You deflect them, minimize them, redirect attention away from yourself. The idea of wanting to be looked at, admired, appreciated for your beauty feels dangerous. Like a trap. So you've made yourself invisible in certain ways, and you pretend you don't mind.

You've replaced receptivity with relentless assertion. You pursue instead of attract. You push instead of pull. You've forgotten how to let things come to you because you've been trained that if you don't go get it yourself, it won't come. You've lost access to magnetic power because you've been too busy with conquest power.

You've made softness feel dangerous. Soft means vulnerable. Vulnerable means hurt. So you've hardened. You've built walls. You've decided that the price of safety is never letting anyone see the tender parts. And now you can't access those tender parts yourself.

You've turned pleasure into achievement. Even your self-care has metrics. Your rest is "recovery" for more productivity. Your pleasure is "wellness" that optimizes your performance. You've forgotten how to enjoy things just because they feel good, with no justification required.

You've treated rest as laziness. Doing nothing feels like failure. Receiving without giving back feels like debt. You've lost the ability to simply BE without producing, contributing, achieving. Venus knows how to rest. You've forgotten.

You've apologized for wanting harmony. You've been taught that conflict is honest and harmony is fake. That accommodation is weakness. That wanting peace makes you a pushover. So you've learned to fight even when you'd rather connect.

This is how Venus starves. Not all at once. Slowly. One suppression at a time. Until the goddess of love and beauty is locked in a basement, forgotten, while you run your life on Mars energy and wonder why nothing feels like enough.

What It Feels Like When Venus Is in Exile

The exhaustion that rest doesn't fix. You take vacations. You sleep. You do all the "right things." And you're still tired in a way that goes deeper than your body. This is the tiredness of running the wrong operating system. Of performing an energy that isn't native to you.

The success that feels hollow. You achieved the thing. You got the promotion, the recognition, the milestone. And standing at the top of the mountain you climbed, you feel... nothing. Or worse, you feel empty. Because Venus doesn't care about conquest. She cares about beauty, love, connection. The things you sacrificed to get here.

The disconnection from your own body. You live in your head. You're not sure what you actually want because you've spent so long overriding your body's signals. Pleasure feels foreign. Sensation feels muted. You've been so busy pushing through that you've forgotten how to inhabit yourself.

The inability to receive. Compliments slide off you. Help feels like burden. Love feels like pressure. You don't know how to let things in because you've been in output mode for so long. Venus receives. You've forgotten how.

The constant vigilance that won't turn off. You're always scanning for threats. Always preparing for battle. Always ready to defend yourself. Even in safe situations, even with people who love you, you can't fully relax. Because Mars is a warrior, and warriors don't rest.

The sense that you're performing a role instead of living a life. Somewhere deep down, you know this isn't really you. The competent, armored, achieving version of you is a character you've been playing so long you've forgotten there's someone else underneath. Venus remembers. She's waiting.

This isn't burnout. Burnout is when you've done too much of something. This is something different. This is what happens when you've been doing the wrong thing. When you've been running on an energy that was never meant to carry your whole life.

This is Venus in exile.

What Venus Actually Wants

She doesn't want to be a badass.

I know that's hard to hear. We've been told for decades that the highest compliment is to be called strong, tough, badass. That the goal is to need nothing and no one. That the measure of a woman's worth is her ability to do everything a man can do, only better.

Venus doesn't care about any of that.

Here's what she actually wants:

To create and be surrounded by beauty. Not as a luxury or a frivolity, but as a necessity. Beauty feeds her. She wants her environment to be aesthetically nourishing. She wants to make beautiful things. She wants to BE beautiful, without apology.

To be seen, appreciated, beheld. She wants to be looked at with admiration. She wants someone to catch their breath when she walks into a room. She wants to be cherished, adored, valued. Not for her accomplishments. For her essence.

To connect deeply with others. Not networking. Not strategic relationships. Actual soul-to-soul connection. Intimacy. The kind of relating that doesn't have an agenda.

To experience pleasure without guilt. Good food, beautiful surroundings, sensual experience, rest and ease. Not as a reward for productivity. Not as "self-care" that optimizes her performance. Just because it feels good. That's enough.

To soften without feeling weak. To let down her guard. To stop performing strength. To be tender and vulnerable and still feel safe.

To magnetize rather than chase. To trust that what she needs will come to her. To cultivate her own radiance and let it attract. To stop pursuing and start receiving.

To rest in her worth instead of constantly proving it. To know she's valuable without evidence, without achievements, without external validation. To simply BE worthy. Full stop.

Notice what's NOT on this list:

She doesn't want to prove she's as tough as Mars. She doesn't want to fight for her place at the table. She doesn't want to suppress her desire for beauty in order to be taken seriously. She doesn't want to perform strength she doesn't feel.

And she definitely doesn't want to be made into a "badass" when what she actually wants is to be soft.

The urge to make Venus more warrior-like, more assertive, more "empowered" in the Mars sense of the word? That urge is actually internalized masculine supremacy. It's the belief that Mars-style power is the only real power. That Venus-style power is somehow lesser.

It's not. It's different. And we've forgotten how to access it.

The Reclamation

Here's what I'm not saying: Abandon everything you've built. Quit your job. Stop being strong.

You have Mars for a reason. There are times when you need to fight, assert, protect, conquer. That energy isn't wrong. It's just not the ONLY energy.

What I'm saying is: Venus has been in exile. And she's ready to come home.

This isn't about choosing femininity OVER masculinity. It's about recognizing that you've been running on one cylinder when you have two. You've been starving half of your energetic capacity. And that starvation is the source of an exhaustion that no amount of rest can touch.

Reclaiming Venus doesn't mean becoming weak. It means becoming whole.

It means letting yourself want beauty without apology. Letting yourself be soft without feeling like you're betraying everything you've fought for. Letting yourself receive without immediately calculating how to give back. Letting yourself rest in your own worth instead of constantly performing it.

It means remembering that magnetic power is still power. That attraction is as potent as conquest. That softness can coexist with strength.

It means, finally, letting Aphrodite off the battlefield.

But There's Something Else We Need to Talk About

Venus can't flourish in a vacuum.

In astrology, every planet exists in relationship to the others. Venus doesn't operate alone. She operates in dynamic tension with Mars. Feminine energy doesn't exist separate from masculine energy. They're two poles of the same spectrum, and they need each other.

Here's the part nobody wants to hear: Venus needs Mars.

Not because she's incomplete without him. Because feminine energy requires a container in order to flourish. And that container is masculine energy.

You can't create softness without something holding the boundary. You can't be receptive if there's no structure protecting the space. You can't magnetize if there's no perimeter within which your gravity can operate.

If we want to reclaim Venus, we also need to talk about Mars. Not as the enemy. Not as the toxic force we need to overthrow. As the partner. The protector. The container that makes feminine flourishing possible.

And that conversation is next.

This is the second piece in a series about reclaiming the feminine. If you haven't read the first piece, "The Conversation Nobody Wants to Have (About the Feminine)," start there. Next up: Why healing the feminine requires honoring the masculine.