It's ostensibly a commentary on loneliness and the need for human connection, as Trager has trouble talking to real women and becomes increasingly obsessed with visiting "meathouses." Twice he falls in love, and twice it fails, the first time because he's rejected, and the second because he's dumped for his best friend. Trager then decides that love is a lie, abandons any hope of improving his life, and finds himself a nice corpse with "a strange erotic innocence in her smile" to settle down with. But critics have pointed out that once you get beyond the shock value, the message is "If only this man who happily fucks corpses had a steady girlfriend, then he'd be all better!"
So when you read "The sensuous evenings with Laurel and the fumbling sex of his boyhood were things of yesterday; Trager took his meatmates hard and quick, almost brutally, fucked them with a wordless savage power to the inevitable perfect orgasm," it's hard not to interpret it as the manifesto of a futuristic incel. Martin himself calls it "the darkest, bleakest, sickest, most twisted thing I ever wrote," although he did promote the 2013 graphic novel, in case anyone reading this was hoping for visuals. The next time you hear someone ask "How could a mind be twisted enough to come up with the Red Wedding?" you can tell them that's actually Martin toning things way down.