Listen I just think that,

I'm extremely interested on your thoughts on Ace-spectrum Rumple. Please share?

Hoooooo damn this got long, sorry!

To start with, I think there’s two distinct people living in Rumpelstiltskin’s body: Spinner!Rumple, and Dark One!Rumple. At their zenith, compare pre-Dark One Rumple, to the Dark One image Emma saw in 5A. At any different moment, Rumpelstiltskin exists on a spectrum between those extremes. I would argue that in essence, those are two completely separate identities, but they make up one person. That’s not to say there’s no overlap - they are mutually constitutive at this point, and my hope is that Rumple’s happy ending will allow him to reconstitute his identity to take the best of both - the DO’s confidence, Spinner’s kindness, etc. 

Those two entities are constantly merging and parting, and have a lot of complex similarities and differences. It’s made more complicated and profound by the way that Dark One!Rumple is both its own exterior force that existed for centuries before Rumple took it on, and a mask that Rumple chooses to wear for specific purposes. So there’s an ambiguity as to how far they’re separate entities, and how far Rumple thinks of himself as the Spinner possessed, or as the Spinner overcoming the darkness, or as the Dark One in the Spinner’s body, or as the monster the Spinner became. 

So anyway, I would apply that logic to Rumple’s sexuality. Spinner Rumple, in my opinion is demisexual and demiromantic. His desire is for intimacy, not for the physical sex act or for an explicitly romantic connection. By comparison, Dark One Rumple is heterosexual, and aromantic. These two identities overlap in really interesting ways throughout the series. 

Going chronologically, we know next to nothing about the beginnings of his marriage to Milah, but there’s no evidence he was ever in love with her. In fact, the one real moment of connection they ever seem to have, is in Manhattan, when Rumple gets his conscription notice and they agree that with the money and honour he’ll earn in battle, they can have a family. So for me, Rumple’s marriage to Milah was socially expected, and a means of building a family. He was poor, he was known as the abandoned son of a coward and a cheat, and we know the most vital thing to Rumpelstiltskin is always family. However, we never see any romantic or sexual connection between them. The one kiss they share is Milah manipulating him into going darker and stabbing a man to save their son - a bleak foreshadow of what is to come, when Rumple takes on the DO. Tellingly, all that shows on Rumple’s face after the kiss is surprise, and resignation that he’ll do as she wants. Any positive reaction we can put down to a cycle of abuse whereby he over-values any approval from Milah, in response to years at this point of consistent emotional and psychological abuse. Every argument he ever makes about their marriage and how it ended is on Bae’s behalf. Therefore, I’d characterise any desire he had for Milah to be desire for family and acceptance rather than sexual or romantic.

Next up: Cora, and hooooo boy do we see a change! I would honestly categorise Cora as the Dark One’s True Love, at least for Rumple’s incarnation. It’s so interesting to me that she’s so much like Milah. She’s tough, dark-haired, biting and smart and ambitious. She left her child because her ambitions, her future, were more important than her motherhood. She’s drawn to power, to manliness, and look at Rumple’s presentation to her: in a very real sense, he’s playing his own twisted take on Killian Jones. He swaggers, he preens, he offers power and violence, and then they have sex. The Dark One is drawn to her sexuality, to her lust for power and the power she will one day have, and is the one having sex with her the first night they meet. He’s the one snarling about breaking veins with his teeth and forcing people to kneel. 

The Spinner - in the moments we see him with Cora, which are rare - is seeking a romantic and familial connection. But he only emerges once he’s formed a connection with Cora - they’re both born poor, they’re both seeking security, and they both want a child. That’s where the Cora/Milah parallel is so obvious: the Dark One wants to fuck her, maybe even loves her in his own dark, destructive, twisted way, but it’s a partners in crime deal, and it’s about Cora herself. The Spinner, however, seeks what he knows, a pattern of connection he’s been missing since Milah stopped being his partner and became his abuser. He’s seeking family and intimacy, and believes that if he keeps being the person Milah Cora wants him to be, he can have the life he wanted before he ran from the war, and fix his perceived past mistakes. He’s the one who accepts her changed deal so readily, wanting his own child. 

That’s where the ambiguity about how mutually constitutive or separate the two identities are from each other. There’s an element of the Spinner playing the Dark One in order to end his loneliness with a human connection. There’s also a genuine element of the Dark One desiring and loving Cora independent of the Spinner. Ultimately, the Dark One is the one fucking Cora, but the Spinner is the one who’s left broken at the end of it.

Belle is... Belle is the Dark One’s downfall. Every moment they’re together, she’s peeling back those scales to find the Spinner within. I don’t need to write a whole lot more on the Belle point because it’s just damn obvious. I honestly think she’s the one example we have of the Spinner feeling genuine sexual and romantic desire and attraction. She’s his emotional connection, his light, the person he loves in every way and wants every sort of intimacy with. She’s also the very first woman he’s ever met and had a relationship with who wanted him to be more like the good, kind Spinner everyone else hated, and rejects the darkness Milah and Cora both approved of.

When we get to Lacey, we see a direct reversal of what happened with Cora. The Dark One is attracted to Lacey, but Lacey shows up when the Dark One is at his weakest in Rumple’s personality because Neal is around and (until very recently) he and Belle had a very good relationship. The Spinner tries to save Belle on their date, and discovers that Lacey is Belle’s opposite: Lacey wants the Dark One, and thinks the Spinner is a pushover. So the Spinner stands aside and lets the Dark One take over for a while - so much so that the Dark One ends up offending and upsetting Neal, putting that relationship in jeopardy, when they beat up Whale. The Spinner re-emerges to wake Belle up at the end of the series, and the moment Belle is back there’s not a scale in sight.

Finally, we gotta discuss 6A and the Evil Queen. Also known as: We’re All stuck On A Burning Character Assassination Train-Wreck Full Of Semi-Incest, Adultery and Spousal Abuse 2016. Now, we have 4A, where the Dark One comes out to cover the Spinner, who is traumatised, PTSD’d, and grieving. We have 5A, where the Dark One is gone and the Spinner has to forge his own identity. However, those two are fairly irrelevant to Rumple’s (a)sexuality, so: 6A. 6A is the purest Dark One we’ve ever seen. The Spinner was defeated when Belle left him at the wishing well in 5A, and since then has decided that the Dark One can protect him from ever being hurt again. That defeat is compounded when, in a moment of vulnerability, the Spinner creeps out in the dream to appeal to Belle to come home, only to be denied again. The last time we see the Spinner, is the scene with the tape - ‘sleep well my bairnie, sleep’. 

So the Spinner does what he did in 4A: he recoils from the pain, and lets the Dark One persona take over, even more thoroughly than ever before. The Dark One persona cuts his hair, and pursues their mutual aim in any way he can: getting access to his child. He sleeps with the Evil Queen, who’s basically a carbon-copy of Cora for the new millennium, for the same reasons: the Spinner is lonely, and the Dark One wants to partner up (sexually and otherwise) with a powerful dark sorceress who enjoys his power and darkness. The Spinner would never have gone near the Evil Queen, but she’s exactly the Dark One’s type. That’s where I see a clear disconnect between the Spinner’s demisexuality (whereby Belle is the only person he ever wants to be intimate with), and the Dark One’s hyper-heterosexuality (willing to fuck any dark-haired, dark-hearted woman who’s willing: see Cora, Lacey, and EQ).

And then, as always, the moment he’s reunited with a Belle who might be willing to listen and reunite, the Spinner re-emerges, and his devotion is clear.

Tl;dr, I think Spinner!Rumple is demi and Dark One!Rumple is hyper-hetero. I think the Spinner!Rumple is probably the more authentic Rumpelstiltskin - what with being the original, and seeming to have the last word on the direction he actually goes in. However, the Dark One has its own distinct set of desires (all of them vicious, kinky, and sexual), and they come out to play around a particular type of woman, when Belle isn’t around to keep the Spinner at the fore.