Think back to some of your earliest Halloween costumes.

Maybe you were a ghost or a witch or a vampire.

This year, girls as young as 3 may be wearing lace-trimmed black leather bustiers, thigh-high leather studded boots with platform heels, lace-up leather corsets and fingerless fishnet gloves as parts of costumes with names such as Major Flirt, Miss Behaved, Ex-Spelled, Delinquent Devil or Spider Geisha.

Lissa Yogan, sociology professor at Valparaiso University and mother of a 6-year-old girl, said she was "fairly appalled" at some of the Halloween costumes for young girls on the market today and the messages they are sending.

"The increasing emphasis on women's sexuality and the willingness of advertisers to use children in what can be argued are increasingly sexualized costumes is harmful to everyone," Yogan said.

Yogan and Cynthia O'Dell, director of the Women's Studies program at Indiana University Northwest in Gary, were asked to analyze costumes manufactured by Disguise of Poway, Calif., the Drama Queen line by Rubie's Costume Co. of Richmond Hills, N.Y., and some of the costumes carried by the online store Zoogster.com.

Many of the costumes reviewed are sold through such large retailers Wal-mart, Kmart, Target, Toys R Us, Walgreens, Amazon.com, Spencer Gifts, Factory Card and Party Outlet and Party City.

Yogan said the advertising photos for the costumes are particularly disturbing. Many of the girls are featured with adult-looking make-up and hairstyles posed in seemingly provocative ways and wearing leather accessories that do not come with the costumes.

"The end result is the fulfillment of the idea that women and girls are to be seen, not heard, and that their fantasy figures (and costumes) should revolve around 'devilish women,' 'major flirts,' 'wayward witches,' etc.," Yogan said.

Parents are ultimately to blame for buying the costumes for their children, Yogan said.

"To buy and dress our daughters in such costumes sends the message to them at a very young age that Halloween is a time to engage in sexual fantasy, which for young girls is probably depicted as playing out the fantasy of being much older, and the character you'll play in this role will be the temptress," Yogan said. "This is very dangerous and eventually allows all of society to continue to see such social problems as prostitution, rape, unwanted pregnancy, etc., as the fault of the temptress/woman."

O'Dell said the impact of sexual advertising images on young girls has been well documented.

"When these cultural messages impinge on children too young to cope with them, it's influencing how they are going to be perceived in society and how they will see themselves," O'Dell said.

Peer pressure may also play a role, O'Dell said, with girls wanting to have costumes that make them look older.

Bernice Nesbit, senior marketing manager for Disguise, said her company is "very conscious about what's appropriate" for children's costumes.

When asked about the appropriateness -- including the styles, what they depict and the advertising images -- of the costumes for the ages they are being marketed to, Nesbit noted that clothing size is not a true indication of age.

"Some 10-year-olds fit that 7 to 8 size," Nesbit said.

Nesbit also said the sizes run large and are designed to allow parents to put leotards or long-sleeved turtlenecks underneath them.

One of the costumes carried by Disguise is named Delinquent Devil and comes in children's sizes 7 to 12. The costume features a black leather-look and red lace top and a red plaid knee skirt with black lace details.

Nesbit defended the style, saying the girl pictured in the photo wearing it was covered from neck to wrist, a knee-length skirt, knee socks and Mary Jane's.

"Lace in itself, I don't think, constitutes it being sexual or adult-like," Nesbit said. " You have lace on First Communion dresses."

The advertising images, she said, are a sign of the times.

"I think that kids are aspiring to be older all the time," Nesbit said. "It's an overall societal thing. It's our job as parents to maintain that and look to things that are appropriate for them no matter who manufactures them."

Anya Waring, PR manager for Amazon.com, said her company carries hundreds of costumes with a variety of themes and styles, not just the kind in question.

"We strive to provide our customers with the widest selection possible," Waring said.

Waring said the best selling girls costumes on the Amazon.com site as of Thursday afternoon were the traditional Little Mermaid and Dorothy from "The Wizard of Oz" costumes, not those being criticized by the Northwest Indiana professors.

O'Dell said it is important to note that in spite of the issues with costumes for young girls, Halloween itself isn't really the problem.

"It's just a reflection of the larger sexual attitudes," O'Dell said. "Halloween is probably just a symptom of the larger problem of stereotyping and judgments based on gender ... It shows how all of this is still so commonplace in society that, of course, they are going to be in our Halloween costumes."