As an interdisciplinary researcher, I study the narratives that exist in the margins of internet history.

Monetization and AI

During my postdoctoral project Silicone Villeray at the Chaire de recherche du Québec sur l'intelligence artificielle et le numérique francophones (IANF), I research the infrastructural impacts of AI on the monetization of arts (grants, fundings, tax credits, salaries, fellowships) in Quebec, Canada, with a focus on the VFX and animation sectors. This builds on my study Not Safe for Work, Not Safe from AI: Creative porn workers and the monetization of Generative AI in the platform economy conducted during my doctoral internship at the Canada Research Chair in Digital Regulation at Work and in Life. I am also very fascinated by the ways AI interacts with monetization in high-risk and informal industries.

Online Moderation

I have always been interested in ethical debates of online moderation for content that do not answer to live-action logic, whether these be cartoons or AI-generated. How can we translate concepts like consent, age, violence in policies when there are no real bodies involved? I explore this as the Guest Editor for Porn Studies Special Issue on Artificial Intelligence, Pornography, and Sex Work and in my book project Zero Tolerance: The web beyond moderation. This will be based on my articles The limits of “Zero Tolerance” policies for animated pornographic media and Create Whoever, However? The moderation of adult content in the age of Generative AI (upcoming).

Cultural Histories of the Internet

As an internet historian at heart, I find going back to the past to be a very productive framework to understand contemporary online practices. This serves as the basis of my PhD thesis Of Tentacles and Men: How anime shaped the internet as we know it which examines how early online anime fandom on USENET shaped the ethos of 4chan and of the alternative web. I continue this work into an upcoming article on the relationship between colonialism and anime avatars on the French internet.

Industrial Histories of Pornographic Animation

Likewise, pornographic animation has always proven to be an invaluable object to understand the evolution of media practices. This has been the subject of my articles The hentai streaming platform wars and Enjeux économiques et industriels de l’animation pornographique et érotique française. Currently, I explore this topic during the Bruno Edera project and in my own intermedia art practices.

PUBLICATIONS

You can access most of my articles for free on my ResearchGate profile here

Aurélie Petit, Jason Millar, Create Whoever, However? Metaphor hacking for AI-porn content generator platforms (in preparation)

Aurélie Petit, Ariane Ollier-Malaterre, Not Safe for Work, Not Safe from AI: Creative porn workers and the monetization of Generative AI in the platform economy (in preparation)

Marie-Josée Saint-Pierre, Aurélie Petit, Sexualities and erotisms in independent animated short films: Women directors’ feminist empowerment. [Sexualités et érotismes dans le court-métrage d’animation : la prise de pouvoir féministe des réalisatrices indépendantes] (under review)

Aurélie Petit, B̷l̷a̷c̷k̷ ̷P̷u̷d̷d̷i̷n̷g̷:A Speculative Visual Index. Representational limits of Generative AI during creative porn productions. (upcoming)

Aurélie Petit (2025) The limits of Zero Tolerance policies for animated pornographic media, Porn Studies, Special Issue ‘Artificial Intelligence, Pornography, and Sex Work’ https://doi.org/10.1080/23268743.2025.2491506

Aurélie Petit (2024) The hentai streaming platform wars, Porn Studies https://doi.org/10.1080/23268743.2024.2418000

Aurélie Petit (2024) Designing adult mods for the Sims 4: An interview with TURBODRIVER. ROMchip, December 2024 Issue, https://romchip.org/index.php/romchip-journal/article/view/208

Aurélie Petit (2022) “Do female anime fans exist?”: The impact of women-exclusionary discourses on rec.arts.anime. Internet Histories. Volume 6, Issue 4, pp. 352-368. https://doi.org/10.1080/24701475.2022.2109265

Aurélie Petit (2019) Industrial and economic stakes for French pornographic and erotic animation [Enjeux économiques et industriels de l’animation pornographique et érotique française]. Revue française des sciences de l’information et de la communication, dossier « L’animation comme industrie culturelle ? Concevoir et produire le dessin animé », n°18, pp. 1-16. https://doi.org/10.4000/rfsic.8166

bOOK CHAPTERS

Aurélie Petit (2027) Digital pornographic animation. The Routledge Companion to Media, Sex, and Sexuality (ed. Anamarija Horvat, Clarissa Smith and Feona Attwood). Routledge. (upcoming) 

Aurélie Petit (2026) Penser l’animation pornographique française par la bande dessinée. Cinéma d’animation et bande dessinée (ed. Xavier Kawa-Topor and Pascal Vimenet). Les Impressions. https://lesimpressionsnouvelles.com/livre/bande-dessinee-et-cinema-danimation

Aurélie Petit (2025) Censure et régulation de la pornographie animanga. Guide du hentai (ed. Julia Popek, Joan Laine and Benjamin Dulot). Éditions Ynnis. https://ynnis-editions.fr/products/hentai-erotisme-et-pornographie-au-japon

reports

Aurélie Petit (2024) Generative AI and the Creator Economy: A Research Agenda (Contributor), Microsoft Research https://ccsn.framer.website/Resources

Aurélie Petit (2022) Gozem. Super Apps (Contributor). Platform Lab Research Report. Issue 2. https://www.theplatformlab.com/super-apps

Aurélie Petit (2022) Anime Streaming Platform Wars (Editor and Contributor). Platform Lab Research Report. Issue 1. https://www.theplatformlab.com/reports

bOOK REVIEW

Aurélie Petit (2020) Book review of The Anime Boom in the United States (Michal Daliot-Bul and Nissim Otmazgin). Synoptique: An Online Journal of Film and Moving Images Studies, “Animating LGBTQ+ Representations: Queering the Production of Movement”, volume 9, n°1, pp. 129-131. https://www.synoptique.ca/_files/ugd/811df8_08984c9514d8436181785eec47496567.pdf

web-based publications

Aurélie Petit (2024) Review: Ottawa International Animation Festival (OIAF) 2024, Fantasy/Animation, https://www.fantasy-animation.org/current-posts/review-ottawa-international-animation-festival-oiaf-2024

Aurélie Petit (2024) The governance of AI-generated pornography: from deepfakes to synthetic animation, AI + Society Initiative, https://www.uottawa.ca/research-innovation/blog/governance-ai-generated-pornography-deepfakes-synthetic-animation

Aurélie Petit (2024) WickedWhims: A conversation about adult content creation and responsible adult mods design in the Sims franchise, Technoculture, Art and Games (TAG), https://tag.hexagram.ca/wickedwhims-a-conversation-about-adult-content-creation-and-responsible-adult-mods-design-in-the-sims-franchise-by-aurelie-petit/

Aurélie Petit (2024) The Bruno Edera Project: Archiving Adult Animation. Fantasy/Animation, https://www.fantasy-animation.org/current-posts/the-bruno-edera-project-archiving-adult-animation

Aurélie Petit (2024) The moderation of AI-Generated adult animation. Animation and video-generating AI. Animation Studies 2.0, https://blog.animationstudies.org/?p=6759

Aurélie Petit (2024) The digital ethnographic potential of animated documentaries in Knit’s Island. Ottawa International Animation Festival 2023 Review. Short Ends, https://shortends.ca/2024/02/06/the-digital-ethnographic-potential-of-animated-documentaries-in-knits-island/

PUBLIC SCHOLARSHIP

Aurélie Petit (2025) Le hentai en France, genre maudit. Hors-série Hentai Juillet-Septembre 2025, Animeland. (Paper publication) https://animeland.fr/2025/06/26/lanimeland-hors-serie-hentai-est-disponible-en-precommande/

Aurélie Petit (2024) Femininity in Kiki’s Delivery Service. Medium. https://medium.com/@aurelievirginiepetit/femininity-in-kikis-delivery-service-studio-ghibli-1989-54e16a656d31

Aurélie Petit (2023) Filmography of Sexual and Erotic Animation Films. Medium. https://medium.com/@aurelievirginiepetit/sexual-and-erotic-animation-films-3fb46f63c875