Venus conjunt Mars in Scorpio: Sexual Harassment On-line

The suicide of a 19 year old boy in New Jersey highlights once again one of the major problems of  social network sites: privacy. Earlier this year – during the conjunction of Jupiter and Uranus in Pisces –  Facebook came under severe criticism, and felt compelled to  simplify its privacy settings. This recent tragedy again highlights the ways in which malicious people can use the internet to destroy another person’s life. In this particular case the young man in question was secretly filmed by flatmates making love to a fellow male student. Text retrieved from Twitter, shows that people were invited to tune in and watch live. While life without internet is hard to imagine, and legislating against such practices would be felt by many in the community as an affront, with Uranus poised to enter Aries – aggressive usage of the internet seems set to rise rather than to fall. At present Venus and Mars are conjunct in Scorpio – a sign linked to deep passion, love, but also to certain forms of sexual violence and aggression. Venus here is Mars ruled, so a story of this sort hitting the headlines doesn’t really come as a surprise even though it should do. What is does do however is highlight particularly negative  social attitudes: on the one hand discrimination and on the other the way in which intimate knowledge of others can be used and abused.

I hope that next year, when Uranus finally does enter Aries, we will also witness some broadening of cultural attitudes with regard to homosexuality. It is hard to imagine what went through this boy’s head and what made him decide that death was a better option than living to see the culprits put behind bars.