Domenica Anita Niehoff also known as Domenica, was a German prostitute

Prostitution

Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...

. She appeared in television shows in the 1980s, where she campaigned for legalization of the profession.

Early life

Niehoff was born in Cologne

Cologne

Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...

. When her mother was arrested for minor fraud, Niehoff and her brother lived in a Catholic orphanage until she was 14. When she was 17 she met a brothel

Brothel

Brothels are business establishments where patrons can engage in sexual activities with prostitutes. Brothels are known under a variety of names, including bordello, cathouse, knocking shop, whorehouse, strumpet house, sporting house, house of ill repute, house of prostitution, and bawdy house...

-owner whom she later married.

Her husband committed suicide in 1972. During that year she started working as a prostitute in red light district

Red Light District

Red Light District may refer to:* Red-light district - a neighborhood where prostitution is common* The Red Light District - the title of the 2004 album by rapper Ludacris* Red Light District Video - a pornography studio based in Los Angeles, California...

 of Hamburg

Hamburg

-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...

, St. Pauli

St. Pauli

St. Pauli , located in the Hamburg-Mitte borough, is one of the 105 quarters of the city of Hamburg, Germany. Situated on the right bank of the Elbe river, the Landungsbrücken are a northern part of the port of Hamburg. St. Pauli contains a world famous red light district around the street Reeperbahn...

 and in the Herbertstraße. Later she opened a studio and became known as a Dominatrix

Dominatrix

Dominatrix or mistress is a woman or women who takes the dominant role in bondage, discipline and sadomasochism, or BDSM. A common form of address for a submissive to a dominatrix is "mistress", "ma'am", "domina" or "maîtresse"...

.

Media attention

In the 1980s she appeared in TV Talkshows campaigning for prostitutes and legalisation of the profession.

Death

Domenica was buried in the Garden of Women at the Ohlsdorf Cemetery

Ohlsdorf Cemetery

-External links:* *...

. She was the first prostitute buried in this area for distinguished women, according to the coordinator of the funeral service.

Literature

• Domenica Niehoff: Domenicas Kopfkissenbuch. Droemer Knaur, München 1989, ISBN 3-426-03994-X.
• Domenica Niehoff: Körper mit Seele. Mein Leben. Aufgezeichnet von Hans Eppendorfer, Droemer Knaur, München 1994, ISBN 3-426-75062-7.
• Fee Zschocke (Texte), Andrej Reiser (Fotogr.): Domenica und die Herbertstraße. Eichborn, Frankfurt am Main 1981, ISBN 3-8218-1701-1.
• Domenica Portfolio. Grafikmappe, Schreiber & Leser, München 1993.

Media

• Menschen bei Maischberger, talkshow on German television

External links

• Domenica Portfolio, Loustal international Art Site: Virtuel Museum
• Domenica Portfolio, Schreiber&Leser
• Sexarbeit Prostitution – Lebenswelten und Mythen, Exhibition in Museum der Arbeit, Hamburg