"I don't remember anyone flinging it around as an insult in my social world."

I doubt there is a male born in the 20th Century in the English-speaking world who didn't hear it flung around as an insult - but it is one of those words that those of us with any pretense of respectability didn't use in front of females.

I've never looked into it, but that story of the witch-burning, etc., sounds like folk-etymology to me .....