Avena is the daughter of Thai and Chinese American parents. She has a large tattoo on the small of her back, a tongue stud and navel piercing. In her early film work, she wore dental braces; they have since been removed. She has also changed her eye color on occasion, especially for her porn/modelling shoots, adopting blue-tinted contact lenses which significantly changed her appearance.
Her high school lover, Theodore Lam, also impregnated her when she was a sophomore in high school.