Porn films have as their principal objective an interactive relationship with the viewer whereby the viewer is sexually aroused and hopefully comes to pleasure in an organism· A film made to be porn may be considered to be a bad film if it does not achieve this objective; a film made to be porn may be considered to be a good film if it results in arousal and organism regardless of it's other cinematic qualities·

On the other hand, an erotic film doesn't appeal exclusively to our senses or carnal· It also engages our aesthetic sense of the human form, our judgment about how this or that scene illustrates an ideal [See Seltzer^]·

The Erotic Films Of Peter De Rome is an anthology of Peter de Rome earliest films in the archive collection of the British Film Institute· The were originally made with Super 8 film· De Rome made them primarily for the enjoyment of himself and his friends· While he indicates that the were meant to be titillating, he did not think of them as being a commercial venture· Among those who saw them were Wakefield Poole, Andy Warhol and Bob Alvarez of Hand in Hand Productions· He was encouraged to submit some of them to the 1973 Wet Dream Film Festival in Amsterdam, where Hot Pants was a hit. With the assistance of Hand in Hand Productions, he went on to produce full length films that were marketed as porn·

De Rome's films in this anthology are rough around the edges· De Rome received no formal training in film making, although he was a movie fan from a very young age. He learned by doing· He used a simple hand held camera most of the time· What he had was an aesthetic sensibility for the male form that raises them above simple hard porn to beautiful artistic expressions· He also had a wonderful sense of humor which is well expressed in many of the films·

Included in the collection is the must view Fragments: the Incomplete Films of Peter de Rome, an interview with Peter de Rome mainly about the films in this collection· Also of interest is the more comprehensive autobiographical film Peter De Rome: Grandfather Of Gay Porn .