Salon's Katharine Mieszkowski interviewed Gigi Durham, a professor at the University of Iowa and author of the newly released The Lolita Effect: The Media Sexualization of Young Girls and What We Can Do About It.

We have discussed sexy clothing for young girls and the disturbing phenomenon that are the Bratz Dolls in this forum. But I had no idea the sexualization of young girls has extended to padded bras for 6-year-olds and poll-dancing kits in the toy store. This is a far cry from playing dress-up with mom's heels and makeup -- as now girls can have their own pint-sized products. Yuck.

Mieszkowski and Durham explored why marketers have taken such a keen interest in young girls. Here is a snippet of that interview:

Why is grown-up sexuality being marketed to younger and younger girls?

I don't think that anybody can pinpoint the single reason, but I think there are a number of trends that can give us some clues about it. The '90s were prosperous. In the mid-'90s there was a lot of disposable income floating around and tweens became a very important niche market for a number of industries. One research firm Euromonitor posits tweens spending $170 billion in 2006. So, this is a wealthy little group of people.

Marketers realized they could create cradle-to-grave consumers by marketing products to kids very early. Then, they would develop brand loyalties, and consumer practices that they would sustain throughout their lifetimes. It was very profitable to start marketing these products to very young kids.

Also, as women have made tremendous gains politically and in the workforce, grown women are moving away from this traditional model of femininity where women are supposed to be docile and passive. And little girls still conform to that very traditional ideal of femininity. So I think that increasing attention is being focused on little girls as embodying ideal femininity.

But 6-year-olds obviously don't have money to buy padded bras. Adults have to be buying them for them. You can criticize companies for bringing out these sleazy products for kids, but if parents reject them won't the products just go away?

It should be that way. There is some collusion on the part of the adults who are allowing, or maybe even encouraging, children to respond to these marketing practices so openly and uncritically.

You were disturbed when a 5-year-old showed up at your doorstep last Halloween dressed up in a titillating costume as a Bratz doll. Why?

Some clothes project sexual symbols. And we know what they are: fishnet hose and stilettos and corsets. They're almost clichés of sexuality. But when you see them on a very young child, there's that sexual overtone that to me is not appropriate. It's not a legitimate way for a child to present herself to the world.

Everyone is sexual, and we develop sexually throughout our lives. I'm not at all insisting that children have to be innocent and sex-free or anything like that. But I think that the kinds of clothing that they're being encouraged to wear are really associated with sex work, in particular. And that to me is a very troubling tendency.