Equity markets can take a hit at pretty much any time for completely unforeseen reasons. This is expected and should be factored into a "safe" withdrawal rate (see Bill Bingham and the 4% rule).
Anyone who was relying on an equity market that never tanked, to survive retirement, was doomed from the outset.
1 - holding bonds versus bond funds are very different, as in the first case, you control the timing of the sale, and in the second, the fund does. That has all sorts of implications about losses (as well as capital gains) in any particular year.
2 - Interest rates have been at zero (ignoring this week's interest rate hike). Using the Barclay's Agg duration of 6.7 (as of this week), then you are just asking for pain in your bond holdings. Stocks may or may not go up or down, but bonds are either going to go down or generate basically zero cash flow. Many people have embraced TINA as a result. [0]
[0] - https://www.ellevest.com/magazine/investing/tina-alternative....