One Couple’s Key to Cutting Teen Sex : Ideas: ‘For Wedlock Only’ teaches parents to make a covenant with their children to remain chaste. An engraved ring cements the deal.

POMONA —  Richard and Renee Durfield know all the statistics:

More than 1 million teen-age girls--one in 10 under age 20--become pregnant in the United States annually.

Seven out of 10 U.S. high school seniors say they are sexually active.

Sexually transmitted diseases plague 8 million Americans under 25.

In 1989, HIV/AIDS became the sixth-leading killer of Americans between the ages of 15 and 24.

But the Pomona couple refuse to be daunted by all the bad news. In fact, they think that they can make a difference in teen-agers’ lives with a war of words--and a ring engraved with a heart and a tiny key.

They have founded a nonprofit organization called “For Wedlock Only” which teaches parents how to encourage abstinence in their children.

“We believe we’re giving children the ability to stand alone against the pressure they are experiencing in society,” said Richard Durfield, senior pastor of Christemple Church in Pomona. “It’s giving them an inner stability and empowering them to make the right choices in adolescence.”

The idea--including a book, “Raising Them Chaste”--came to the Durfields as a remedy to counter the increase in sexual promiscuity they first noticed in the 1970s. As Christians, they wanted their four children to avoid premarital sex, but they that knew peer pressure would be tremendous.

“We believe in chastity and in God’s plan that sex be a part of marriage,” Richard Durfield explained.

So in 1977, when their oldest child, Kimberly, was 11, Renee Durfield took her out for a special evening. Seated at an out-of-the-way table at a nice restaurant, she told her daughter that she could order anything she wanted. She also told her that she could ask, without embarrassment, any questions she had about boys, sex and growing up.

Over the next few hours, mother and daughter had a heart-to-heart talk, during which Renee Durfield read the Bible and asked Kimberly to make a covenant with God to remain a virgin until marriage.

When Kimberly agreed to make the pact, her mother gave her a reminder--a ring engraved with a heart and a key--and told her daughter to wear it until her wedding night.

Now 25, Kimberly wears the ring as a symbol of the key to her heart. And so do her sister and two brothers, who were also taken out for what their parents call “key talks” when they reached puberty.

Since 1989, when a religious magazine published an article about the Durfields, they have received nearly 50,000 letters and telephone calls from parents who want to know more about key talks, Richard said. They have also heard from single adults who want to participate, Renee said.

The Durfields have traveled all over the world speaking about sexual abstinence, most recently in Barbados, and have been interviewed extensively in the religious media.

Their idea is catching on, the Durfields think, because it is simple and proactive--it opens the lines of parent-child communication and draws parents and children closer together, rather than pitting them on opposite sides of a “thou shalt not . . . “ scenario.

The key-talk concept can be adopted by non-Christians, the Durfields said, and even by non-religious people.

Although they think that making a covenant with God means divine help in keeping that covenant, the couple said they can envision similar promises made between children and their parents or friends.

The key talk, originally meant to be a serious conversation between father and son, or mother and daughter, can also be used by single parents, the Durfields said. If a father is not available to talk to a boy, then a mother, uncle, pastor or school counselor with a special relationship to the boy would do. The same goes for girls whose mothers are not available, they said.

The Durfields see their plan as the first line of defense against the host of sex-related ills plaguing America’s youth. But sexual abstinence programs, including those taught in some public schools, have been criticized as unrealistic and ignorance-promoting.

Despite parents’ or counselors’ warnings, the Durfields recognize that there are large numbers of young people who will be sexually active. So they are not opposed to safe-sex education, if it is taught responsibly.

“My problem is that, often, it’s not really safe given the spontaneity with which kids engage in sex,” Richard Durfield said.

The minister said he also worries about the link that has shown up between alcohol consumption and sexually active teen-agers.

As for those who might accuse them of promoting ignorance, the Durfields said they are very much in favor of giving children straight information about sexual behavior.

From young childhood on, Renee Durfield said, she and her husband have answered their children’s questions honestly and openly, trying never to make sex a shameful or embarrassing subject.

“We always used the correct terms (for anatomy) so that by the time they had questions, they knew how to ask them,” Renee Durfield said. “By keeping an open line of communication about sex from the time they were very young, they knew they could come to us when they reached puberty and wanted to ask more specific questions.”

Some psychologists worry about the emotional consequences for teens who break chastity pledges. But Richard Durfield said he tells parents and children that they must forgive because God forgives.

“If a child has forgiving parents and a forgiving atmosphere, they should not have a great fear of failure,” he said.

The Durfields, who are African-Americans, want to focus their program in minority communities, where the rates of teen pregnancy and AIDS are particularly high.

“It hits so hard there because of the lack of self-esteem for these children,” Richard Durfield said. “They think they need sex, or gangs or drugs for acceptance. Our goal is to rebuild that child’s self-esteem; to show them you can come from nothing but in God’s eyes you’re not a nobody.”

The Durfields grew up in poverty and both lost parents at an early age. Richard Durfield’s father left the family’s Pacoima home when he was young and his mother was chronically ill. Renee Durfield’s mother died when she was 10.

When they met at a church service in 1966 and married six weeks later, they vowed they would make their children’s lives better.

“We purposed in our hearts that we would not repeat the cycle” of divorce and dysfunction, Richard Durfield said. “We want our children to know they can be the trend-setters. They don’t have to be at the mercy of their friends or peers.”

The idea that a parent would take time out to spend a special evening with a child and buy him or her a ring is a boost to any teen-ager’s self-esteem, Renee Durfield said.

Their four children are popular, good-looking, well-spoken and fun to be around, the couple said.

“All you need to do is talk to them, watch their lifestyle and you’d know our idea worked,” Renee Durfield said.