I'm all for bringing back the birch, but only between consenting adults.

The line hinges on a double meaning of “the birch”: birching as corporal punishment (often associated with schools, prisons, or moral “discipline”) and birching as an erotic practice. Vidal’s wit works by feigning support for a punitive, old-fashioned form of social control, then abruptly restricting it to “consenting adults,” a phrase drawn from the language of sexual ethics and civil liberties. The joke thus satirizes nostalgia for authoritarian discipline while reaffirming liberal principles of consent and privacy. It also exemplifies Vidal’s broader style: using epigrammatic humor to puncture moralism and expose how public calls for “order” can mask prurience or cruelty.