Posing in Bondage: A Phenomenological Investigation into the Male Loneliness Epidemic
A presentation by McGillicuddy Humanities Center Undergraduate Fellow Wyatt Perron
Date: Thursday, December 3, 2026
Time: 5:00-6:00pm
Location: Virtue Room, The Maples 217
With the discussion surrounding male loneliness on the rise, it’s important to take the time to ask why. Why are we suddenly talking about it, and why does this loneliness so often result in violence against women? When a society raises boys to believe that the world is 鈥渢heirs,鈥 they grow to expect love, intimacy, and connection to happen unearned. This entitlement collides with another framework men are raised within: the fear of weakness, especially emotional weakness. Together, these forces create a disastrous effect, leaving us with emotionally vacant men who crave connection but refuse vulnerability. Men are raised to be strong, emotionless, and stoic. Entangled in these cultural expectations, they remain waiting, posing in bondage, expecting connectedness and love they never worked for or learned to nurture. The phrase 鈥減osing in bondage,鈥 coined by Japanese Breakfast, means waiting to be seen and loved while trapped in ropes of one鈥檚 own making. The ties that bind these men are clear: an ouroboros of feeling entitled to connection and yet fearing vulnerability, which feeds both loneliness and violence. The knots are clearly seen; what remains is to learn how to cut them. Using the works of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Simone de Beauvoir, Linda Mart铆n Alcoff, Elizabeth Grosz, Laura Bates, and Bell Hooks, this paper embarks on an exploration of the processes of both masculinization and feminization, ultimately concluding that if we are to ever untie these knots that bind, we must start by rejecting the entirety of our current gendered norms.