Joni, I think you might be correct. It would be interesting to track down the first usages of it to be for sure, but that would be nearly impossible to do.
What I've seen in my research is that, while it used to be considered a negative term, to a lot of the house kids it is almost a term of endearment now. I don't know how that happened, which would be another interesting phenomena to check out. Might be a good project for some just starting a project on slang, and the way slang words are formed. I don't have the time currently to investigate it any further with all the other projects I am currently doing.
Thorne