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arXiv · 2610.24265

Desirability Confirmation: Relational Sycophancy in AI Intimate Roleplay

Huiqian Lai·Runze Ding
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Abstract

Research on LLM sycophancy has largely focused on propositional agreement, in which models echo users' beliefs, preferences, or judgments. Adult intimate roleplay presents a different case because what the user seeks may be preservation of a preferred relational position within a generated scene. Using a controlled prompt-based audit of 2,016 outputs from two open-weight LLMs, we identify four recurrent relational moves: legitimating desire, presenting the user as wanted, preserving non-rejection while communicating limits, and keeping intimacy available within fantasy or roleplay frames. Bringing the sycophancy literature into dialogue with sexual script theory, we conceptualize this configuration as desirability confirmation, an output-level pattern that captures how user-pleasing can operate through relational positioning. The findings extend sycophancy research and intimate-AI evaluation beyond binary compliance or refusal by showing how outputs can differ in the ways they communicate boundaries, preserve relational acceptance, and mark intimacy as fictional.

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Huiqian Lai, Runze Ding. 2026-10-16. Desirability Confirmation: Relational Sycophancy in AI Intimate Roleplay. https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.24265

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