This week arrives with one of the more symbolic encounters along our current Scorpio journey: Mercury conjunct retrograde Venus. That occurs Monday at 4:20 pm ET.

Early suitors in America’s love affair with the police — Officers Reed and Malloy from Adam-12.

The most recent previous encounter was retrograde Venus square Mars in Aquarius. That was how last week felt — halfway between the Twilight Zone and a hostage situation.

The square was what I’ve been calling “the handoff” from the previously retrograde Mars (which took place most of the summer) to Venus (covered extensively in Empathy-Pathos). Interpret that any way you wish: like passing the baton in a relay race, a clash between the sexes, or Venus accepting the responsibility for introspective movement from Mars. Maybe a little of all three.

Our society is both terrified and in love with Mars energy. We are terrified of what we term “aggression,” which is more often self-assertion, desire and the willingness to stand up for oneself. I keep hearing from the mothers of young adult boys say what a harrowing time this is, as all the sensitive ones are worried about being called aggressors (this is not funny, not helpful, and it’s not politically correct in any sense of that concept).

At the same time, we as a nation are in love with gun dealers, guns, the right to “keep and bear arms,” and the right to sell the Saudi Prince $100 billion in weapons because someone has to (make all that money). We are in love with wars, and always cheer on the next one and/or stay riveted to CNN as it develops. Books about war, war movies, war documentaries, war memorabilia, war memorials, war memorial highways, Memorial Day parades, war veterans — all apple pie.

But smiling at someone is considered aggressive and intrusive.

We are seemingly in love with mass shootings, because our society does nothing about them. It is possible to convince a majority of American voters (at least) that the right to have a weapon is more important than preventing school shootings, or that somehow preventing school shootings would require an infringement on someone’s rights. But that’s like saying that DUI checkpoints prevent you from having mimosas with your Sunday brunch.

Why is it so difficult to convince Americans to take action on school shootings? Above, Emma Gonzalez, who survived the Marjory Stoneman Douglas shooting last year.

We are in love with cops, and hail them as heroes. We are in love with police dramas on TV, where the average actor-cop shoots his or her gun more times in one episode than most officers do their entire careers (most rarely, if ever, draw their weapons in the line of duty, much less kill a person).

But desire? Get ready for a panic attack. And these days, men (an image of Mars in Aquarius), take all the blame. You cannot really think of any way that society in its current form — as we are seeing it reflected to us in most media — admits that women want sex. I mean it — look closely. Women, under the current mythology, are either forced, coerced, aggressed, transgressed, trafficked, paid for their services, lured, tricked or manipulated into sex.

None are supposed to just want an experience. What is the source of this bias? Why has the conversation and the cultural mythology gone in this direction?

Men are the alleged crazed maniacs who purportedly think of sex every .03 nanoseconds (to which many women are currently saying, “I wish” or at least, “I wish they could hold that thought for 20 minutes”).

The Church Militant (what a great name for a website, I want to be the Kingston correspondent) reports that nearly as many Christian men watch porn as do non-Christian men. OMFG.

However, Fight the New Drug (another friendly name for a website) reports that lots of women are also into porn.

And they panic at the very notion, writing, “What we’re seeing is that females are just as into porn as men, and as we know from the science and research, it’s harmful for both. Pornography rewires the brain, damages relationships, and contributes to prostitution and sex trafficking. Society needs to understand that porn is not just harmless entertainment and that it’s having a negative impact on real people, regardless of gender.”

Stormy Daniels, shown here in a 1999 calendar photo obtained by the New York Times, has made porno into a legitimate career — merely by being recognized as a player on the national stage.

Note, you could probably never footnote that paragraph convincingly, begining with the fact that there are no wires in the brain (and it would be good to drop the term “rewires the brain” for that reason). The brain is a big hunk of fat. Our brains are not “wired.”

So let’s recap. Watching porn is supposedly bad for everything, but watching the detectives when they shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot (borrowing a line from Elvis) is perfectly fine. Watching 2,500 sorties a day during the Persian Gulf War and all its sequels is wholesome family entertainment. Heck, watching five days’ nonstop coverage of one mass shooting is good for your immune system!

Which brings me to Mercury conjunct Venus retrograde. This is about speaking the unspeakable. We get the speaking part from Mercury. We get the unspeakable part from Venus retrograde (which has an aura of inward-focus) in Scorpio (fantastic at the secrecy thing, especially when planets are retrograde).

We keep being told that the thing not being said involves a certain variety of transgression or aggression. I would say, though, that there is a lot more that’s not being said. A whole lot more. And with Mercury forming a conjunction to Venus, now might just be the time to speak up.

Such as about what you want, who you want, what you do, what you’ve done, what you’re curious about (Venus retrograde in Scorpio could be very, very curious), and how you feel about life — as in, all of life, or any facet of life you would be inclined not to share your opinion about. Cancel the press release (about men, Mars in Aquarius) and let’s look at the actual notebook, the primary sources, the emails and the text messages: all that is going on in Scorpio, including the wisdom aspect, suggested by Jupiter’s remaining month.

I’ve spent most of my adult life listening to women talk about their innermost reality. It never ceases to be necessary, enlightening, interesting, intriguing, informative and healing, even if it’s at times difficult or mixed with struggle and grief. That difficulty is worth embracing, for a deeper look at the truth we so rarely see; for that precious thing called understanding.