Same degree, eight degree orb
A conjunction means both bodies at the same ecliptic longitude, counted here inside eight degrees. Pluto needs about two hundred and forty eight years for a full circuit, so it drifts by a degree or two a year and is effectively a fixed point while Venus travels past at a little over a degree a day.
Venus reaches Pluto once a year, and the sixteen degree band takes roughly a fortnight to cross. Every birth in that fortnight carries the aspect and the same sign. That is worth saying before any interpretation, because it sets the ceiling on how much the general description can tell you about a person.
Venus also spends about forty days retrograde every nineteen months. If that happens near Pluto, the conjunction perfects three times over a couple of months, and those births hold it more insistently than a single pass would give.
What fusion does to this pair
Venus signifies attraction, affection, taste and value. Pluto is read as what will not stay on the surface: compulsion, power, the material people keep out of view, and the process by which something is destroyed and rebuilt rather than adjusted. The tradition is consistent that Pluto has no light touch.
Fused, the two produce wanting without a dimmer switch. The usual descriptions include all or nothing attachment, an attraction to people and subjects other people find too much, a low tolerance for pleasant surfaces, and an ability to see what someone is concealing. Jealousy and control appear in the older literature, and so does an unusual loyalty, which are two faces of the same refusal to hold anything lightly.
What it does not describe is a level of drama in the life. Plenty of people with this conjunction are outwardly quiet. The intensity is in what they are attached to, not in how loudly they say so.
Sign, house and orb
The sign is a cohort marker rather than a personal one, since Pluto stays in a sign for well over a decade. It still colours the material. This conjunction in Scorpio, where Pluto moved unusually quickly, reads differently from the same conjunction in Capricorn, where the concern turns to structures and status.
The house is what makes it yours, and it needs a birth time. In the second the aspect lands on money and self worth. In the seventh it goes straight into partnership, which is where most of the traditional descriptions come from. In the twelfth it is largely private and often invisible to everyone but the person.
Orb decides how much of the description applies. Inside two degrees it is normally unmistakable. Beyond five it is a tint. Pluto is retrograde for roughly five months of every year, so a natal retrograde Pluto is the ordinary case and carries no special meaning by itself.
When it is background
A contact to Pluto that touches nothing else in the chart is background, and the site would rather say that than invent a destiny for you. What lifts it out is a personal body or an angle on the same degrees: a Moon, an ascendant or a chart ruler there makes the conjunction a description of temperament instead of a cohort fact.
The rest of Venus matters too. Venus in Taurus or Libra keeps its own footing under this pressure. Venus in Scorpio is already in Pluto's territory, and the conjunction there has much less to resist it.
The check above returns the orb to the minute, the sign, the house and whether Venus was applying or separating, which is the part a general description cannot supply.
Questions people ask about this
What does Venus conjunct Pluto mean?
It fuses attraction and value with compulsion and depth, so preference arrives at full strength rather than in degrees. The tradition reads it as all or nothing attachment, and how that plays depends on the house, the orb and the rest of the chart.
Is it a difficult aspect?
Conjunctions are neither easy nor hard by nature. They intensify what they join, so the answer depends on what you are joining Venus to and where it lands. With Pluto the material is intense whichever way the rest of the chart falls.
Does it mean jealousy?
Jealousy is in the older descriptions, and so is exceptional loyalty. Both come from the same refusal to hold an attachment lightly. Which of the two dominates is not decided by the aspect alone.
How common is it?
Venus passes within eight degrees of Pluto once a year, and the crossing takes about a fortnight. Everyone born in that window has it, which makes it a normal placement rather than a distinguishing one.
Does a retrograde Pluto matter?
Not on its own. Pluto is retrograde for close to half of each year, so a natal retrograde Pluto is what you would expect. Look at the orb and the house instead.
What makes it personal rather than generational?
A tight orb, an accurate birth time that puts it in a specific house, and a fast body or angle sitting on the same degrees. Without at least one of those, it belongs in the background of a reading.