Jen Gurecki Mixes Business with Pleasure
A chat with the founder of brands Coalition Snow and Après-Delight
Zoe Wirth (she/her) ‘24
Sex is constantly being practiced and produced, but the outdoors and snow sports industry are not sex-neutral. Sex has always been there, but the ways it is marketed and profited off of only capture a sliver of the outdoor communities’ sexual orientations and preferences.
From controversies of woman’s inclusion in ski films to last season’s premiere of “The Approach” – the industry is at a crossroads.
A few individuals in this space are continuing to push back against the outdoor industry’s male-dominated purview. They are vocalizing how important it is to advance an outdoors community that truly values diversity, equity, and inclusion, and part of that includes being eager to celebrate and promote all sexual identities and genders.
Jen Gurecki is a figurehead in this movement. Her tools of choice? CBD intimacy oil and skis.
Jen is a business owner, leader, activist, and founder of several brands, including Coalition Snow and Après Delight. These companies not only use their platforms for ‘skis, snowboards, and shenanigans’ but to promote radical inclusivity and an intersectional feminist perspective.
Jen told me she has been questioning “why things are the way they are” since her teenage years.
Coalition Snow is a women-owned and operated company founded by Jen Gerucki and Lauren Bello Okerman. Its mission is to create performance-driven skis and snowboards and build a community that values inclusivity, camaraderie, and sustainability. What sets them apart?
“We have been willing to do and say what our peers will not. There is no place for the status quo, no room for hanging back, no time to wait or play it safe.”
Here is where the intimacy oil comes into play.
Après Delight is brought to customers by Coalition Snow and strives to break away from societal norms and be outspoken about pleasure, intimacy, and self-love.
“This brand and my team were like, ‘oh, let’s do this, let's talk about this. Let's be different than everybody else in the industry,” she said. “Let’s normalize things that should be normal. Anything that is not normal is because someone decided that it was a way to have power over you.”
Jen’s said her brand and team push, take the risks and heat so other brands can incrementally move along. “There have to be some people pushing to move everyone else along. If there are no people pushing, nothing happens.”
Après, through their company and community, seek to create a gender–inclusive outdoors community that embraces their customers as full people. That means embracing sex.
“It is not like the outdoors or snow sports have been sex neutral,” said Jen, rejecting the narrative that Coalition Snow, Après Delight, and a handful of other people are just now introducing sex. “Sex has always been there; it has just been through the lens of straight, cis, white men.”
During our interview, Jen posed the question, “Why do we think our experiences in the outdoors were devoid of pleasure, intimacy, and sexuality?”
She then answered her own question, saying, “They are not; they are full of it. When cis-gendered heterosexual white men control the narrative, it is not taboo. It is when the rest of us start talking about it, then people freak out. No one is really interested in women's pleasure. That makes people nervous. Another example is talking about queer pleasure and queer relationships makes people nervous.”
Jen said she was once told by a competitor in the ski industry her brand was only able to engage in activism and inclusivity because of her gender.
“You cannot be mad at me because I can post pictures of naked humans, and it is revered, and you cannot do it. That is your problem, not a new problem,” said Jen.
Après Delight and its Good Lovin’ Blog guides its customers on the nitty gritty’s of pleasure. Wondering about watching ethical porn? Want some “checklists for getting down outdoors?” Jen and Lauren have you covered. Enhance your adventures outside or really anywhere you seek to engage in pleasure.
Après is more about normalizing pleasure than it is about having sex outdoors,” Jen said.
“It is related to the outdoors because that is our industry. That is what we know. Après is trying to say that pleasure should be normal. Everybody's pleasure should be normal. Pleasure is an important part of our mental health, a part of our physical health, and we should not be afraid to talk about it,” continued Jen. The barriers in sexuality, bodily autonomy, and inclusivity that face the outdoor industry do not exist separate from those same challenges in greater society. Jen continued…
“You cannot divorce sexuality and sex-positivity from a larger conversation around inclusivity. The reason why we are so uncomfortable with sexuality and intimacy is because of toxic masculinity, misogyny, racism, and white supremacy. You cannot just pick and choose what parts you want to talk about and what parts you do not.”
Part of this larger conversation includes the recent ruling on Roe v. Wade. Pleasure is rooted in historically and culturally perpetuated exclusivity.
Jen went on to say, “The same people who are in favor of overturning Roe v. Wade are the same people who do not want to normalize the pleasure that trans people have, who do not want to normalize the pleasure that queer people have, who do not want to normalize the pleasure that Black women have.”
[From Coalition Snow Website]
The outdoor industry has, over the past few years, attempted to be more inclusive and, in a lot of cases, make pledges and commitments to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) and increase political transparency. Yet, Jen remains skeptical.
After Roe v. Wade was overturned, Jen was not surprised by the lengths that people in power were willing to go to to preserve that power, but she was also ready to act and challenge her own industry to do better.
“I do not know any brand that is not talking about diversity, equity, and inclusion. Yet, when Roe was overturned, crickets,” she said. “So tell me about how that black square is working out for you now. You don't see how this is all connected? Oh, that women's empowerment campaign you did to get more women out to ski, you think we give two fucks about that right now when our reproductive rights were just overturned?”
Jen is not alone in pointing out that there is a massive disconnect not only in the outdoor industry but across industries between what companies claim to stand for and how that is translated into action.
“The outdoor industry has refused to make that connection and to speak up. If you care about women, if you care about DEI, and if you are committed to all of that, you cannot ignore something like overturning Roe v. Wade. And yet the majority of them did.” Jen said.
There are many groups of people who do not feel safe outside. To commit ourselves as an industry, as business owners, as people to creating and enforcing safe spaces, Jen suggests, “We have to listen to these people, do the things they need, and ensure that the outdoors is a space for everybody and that everyone can find joy.”
Despite these obstacles, Jen offered some words of reprieve. While the outdoors are not a fully accessible or safe place because of the industry and systems it supports – those structures can be dismantled. “You do not need an industry to be outside. You can simply walk out your door and be outside. Every person has the ability to define that for themselves and to find peace and joy in the way that they choose to seek pleasure and the outdoors,” she said passionately. “The outdoors is there for everybody the minute you walk outside. Any way you choose to participate outside is being in the outdoors.”
